


Rewrite This Story

by Sokorra



Series: Madison [2]
Category: Smash (TV)
Genre: Angst, Baby Fic, F/M, Family Dynamics, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Introspection, M/M, Multi, Non-betad, Post Series, Pregnancy issues, References to Depression, Suicide Attempt, Terrence Falls/Ivy Lynn one sided, Therapy, Triggers, disappearing twin miscarriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-15 07:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5776108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sokorra/pseuds/Sokorra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having decided to get back together, Ivy and Derek must now face their families with the news about the baby, as well as adjust to changes they both have to make if they want to last.  As always, nothing as easy as you may hope, and they aren't the only ones needing to adjust to things.</p><p>Direct sequel to "Heart Shaped Wreckage" and part of the Madison series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 Edited on 2/11/2018

Ivy fell asleep before him. Of course he’d been sleeping a lot lately, having nothing better to do, so it didn’t surprise him that he was still awake. He didn’t mind as it gave him time to soak in the fact that she was with him. That they had fixed, or at least started to fix what had gone wrong between them.

She was curled up next to him, an arm flung over his chest and her head resting on his shoulder. He played with her long hair with one hand while resting the other on her arm. He had never considered himself a romantic, too much of a cynic to be one, but part of him felt like he was in a dream. This night had gone better than he had anticipated. Hell, given the last couple of days, it went _vastly_ better than he had expected.

He knew there was still much to talk about. That had been their main problem, he had figured out during his week of seclusion and soul-searching. They had talked but never got too far below the surface until one of them blew up. Usually it was her, in their history. He was more passive aggressive, he might as well admit it. Ivy on the other hand was good at making sure you knew she was unhappy with you.  Most of the time.

He felt like he was finally digging himself out of the hole he had fallen into. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. His career was still in shambles, no matter what Ivy and Eileen told him for one thing. It would take a lot to build it up again. But he felt freer than he had for a long time, and he could feel the love of theater building up again. Over the last couple of months, as the weight of all his past mistakes weighed down on him he could feel his love of his work slowly ebb away.

Tonight, he had felt it again. Of course, there was also something to be said about getting one up on a woman who was at the pinnacle of his downfall.

And the best part of the night was being able to look in Ivy’s eyes as he told the whole world that he loved her. There would be no mistake in what he meant. And he meant every word. He owed her _everything_.

She believed in him when other people stopped. Even though she had been so disappointed in him that night at Table 47 (and he figured losing her faith in him was what was the final straw), she had still come over. Still admitted that she loved him. After all that he had contributed to the downfall of their relationship, she hadn’t ignored him when he came by needing a friend.

He knew this was going to be his last chance that he had to make it count. He was a little nervous about that. He loved her, that was a fact, but he had never been good at relationships. His two failed marriages were proof enough. His record with Ivy was likewise not very good.

Ivy shifted in her sleep, turning over to face away from him. He gently removed his arm from beneath her head, and wrapped himself around her so they were still touching.

To be honest, Ivy was probably one of his longest relationships, if not the longest, since his last marriage, not even counting the months they were apart. That was mostly because she was probably the only one he continued seeing more than once or twice. There was something about her that had enthralled him a little.

He kissed her shoulder, getting a soft murmur from her as she settled more comfortably in his embrace, her hand linking her fingers through the hand he had wrapped around her. “Sleep.”

“I will,” he said quietly, but still far too awake. There was a lot to take in, too much going through his still hungover brain. They were in a full out relationship this time around and he didn’t want to ruin it for many reasons. This was their last chance; he couldn’t see her giving him another one. He loved her, something that was still a fresh realization, and slightly embarrassing that it took him so long. And there was also the surprise addition growing beneath their hands.

He was going to be a father. It seemed almost a distant thought at the moment. Ivy didn’t even seem pregnant, although he supposed his comment the other day about her being radiant had been a little too on point, despite not knowing of the baby. He couldn’t see any physical changes otherwise, although the rumors of her behavior as of late seemed to lend itself to pregnancy. Not that he doubted her; he believed her. It was just a little hard to grasp for him.

It was probably not the best time to be starting a family. They were just starting, personally, and it wasn’t a great time for either of their careers. Mostly because his was practically ashes, with only a few possible embers, and hers was burning too brightly at the moment for her to pause now. She seemed more comfortable with the idea though. As if this hadn’t bothered her. He knew that wasn’t the case. Despite her calm acceptance of the situation, he could see that she wasn’t as calm as she acted. He knew her too well.

And she knew him too well.

He settled down onto the pillow, enjoying their closeness. They didn’t normally sleep this way. They usually found their way to separate ends of the bed, both enjoying their space. But given the events of the day, he wanted to stay close. Remind him he was getting another chance. That this time they would figure it out and keep it together.

He managed to drift off a short time later, relaxing into the warmth of having her near, and having one thing going well for him.

~*~

Ivy woke before Derek did. Part of it was the early morning nausea that had started to become her ‘friend’. She lay on her back and took relaxing breaths. Sometimes it helped her to avoid throwing up in her so far limited experience, but it didn’t always work. This morning however it seemed to fail and she managed to stumble out of bed and to her bathroom in time to throw up what remained of the dinner she had the night before.

She flinched in surprise when she felt someone’s fingers in her hair, pulling it back so it was out of the way and not laying on the toilet seat. It took her a second to remember Derek had been there, so used to waking up on her own since their first break up. She wasn’t sure how she forgot, given that he had been sleeping practically on top of her the night before.

As the dry heaves slowed down, Derek started to rub her back, helping her relax. She eventually closed the lid and flushed, moving to sit on top of the lid, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Is it always that bad?”

“In the morning? No. The baby seems to like intermission, believe it or not. I’ve been late for a curtain call or two. Thankfully not by much. I’m surprised no one has caught on. Then again, Sam was given the impression everyone thinks I’m over-medicated again.” Feeling better, but still a little weak, she pushed herself up and to the sink to rinse her mouth out, before pulling out her toothbrush. Derek stayed with her, allowing her to lean back against him as she brushed. It felt good having him there, though she was surprised he had stayed. He was being more tactile than usual, too. But she wasn’t going to complain as it was what she needed right now.

She supposed they should be glad it was the middle of June, as he was dressed only in a pair of boxers and she only in the dress shirt he had worn the day before. She normally wasn’t one to wear her partner’s outfits, but after they had made love the night before, she hadn’t felt like grabbing pajamas and had just grabbed his shirt from floor beside her.

He on the other hand seemed to be fascinated by her in it.

She leaned forward and spit out the toothpaste, re-rinsed her mouth and put the brush back in its spot in the medicine cabinet above the sink. She turned around to face him, taking him in. His hair was all over the place, and she could still see that he still wasn’t a hundred percent better after his weeklong bender. However, he looked content, just standing there with her. It was surprising.

“Thank you.” She said. At his curious look she pointed to her hair. “For holding it up.”

“No problem,” he responded, resting his hands on her waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they leaned their foreheads against each other’s. They were both exhausted still, and she still felt a little uneasy due to the morning sickness. She normally felt better, but given how yesterday had been emotionally exhausting; she probably wasn’t as prepared to battle her body.

After a few minutes he pulled free and took her hand and led her back to bed, curling himself around her after she climbed in. That was another change from before. The first time they were together there had always been a level of separation at night. When they had gotten back together around her birthday, he had started being more up to the cuddling part, and she had often woke up to find an arm thrown over her, or a foot wrapped around her ankle. She didn’t mind, but it was different, and there hadn’t been enough time to really get used to it.

Maybe it was _how_ they started things. The first time things had been so connected to the show. He had been her boss, and in hindsight she could tell it had been one of her poorer ideas, even if she couldn’t quite bring herself to completely regret it. The second time, and this third attempt, they hadn’t been working together. She knew they could work together. They had done a few shows together now and she knew they worked well professionally when they weren’t having relationship problems. Then again, that first time the show had been their relationship.

She knew she was partially to blame. She knew she came across as self-centered, and perhaps she was to a point. She had been the type of person she had hated during those early months on Bombshell. Using her position as star to fight her jealousy of Karen among other not so great life choices. She wished she could blame it all on the pills, but that could only go so far.

As she settled into a comfortable position, her head against Derek’s chest as the two of them shifted to sleep once more she made the promise to herself to never let their relationship affect how she worked. She couldn’t do that again.

There were many things she had to remember not to do again.

Hours later she awoke slowly, hearing someone at her door, wrestling with keys. Startled she sat up and looked at the alarm clock.

“Derek, get dressed!” She stated in a harsh whisper, hurrying out of his embrace to find something to wear that was more ‘company appropriate’. “My mother’s here.” He blinked at her slowly as he digested her words before getting out of bed himself.

“Why is Leigh here? I thought she had her own place,” Derek asked while searching for his clothes. She managed not to blush at the fact that she had pretty much flung them to kingdom come when she got them off him the night before.

“She told me she was coming around lunch time to talk and pick up her make-up bag.”

“She’s knows about us, right?” She stopped, finding the odd questioning tone surprising.

“Of course she does. I’m not sure there is anyone who _doesn’t_. Although I’m not sure she’s expecting you to still be here now.” Derek had just put on his pants and undershirt when the door finally opened and Leigh walked into the apartment, her hands filled with shopping bags.

“Good Morning, Darling,” She said, not having noticed that Ivy wasn’t alone. “I brought some lunch from that place you told me about the other day. I know I said we’d go out, but I think this is nicer, don’t you think?” She put her bags on the counter in the small kitchenette. She turned around and walked into the bedroom and stopped, one eyebrow raised at the sight of her daughter tossing a dress shirt over the bed at a certain director.

“If you needed more time, dear, you could have just called me and cancelled,” she said. Ivy couldn’t tell if her mother was annoyed or amused. “Hello, Derek.” Definitely less amused.

“Leigh.” was his only answer as he buttoned his shirt. It still smelled a little of Ivy.

“Good thing I brought extra. You’ll stay for lunch, won’t you?” She asked. Derek looked over at Ivy who shook her head slightly to let him off the hook. There was a conversation she needed to have with her mother she rather not have him there for. She could only hope that he got her reasoning and didn’t think she was saying she didn’t want him there because she didn’t want to acknowledge they were together again.

“I have an early lunch meeting with Eileen, so I’m going to have to decline, Leigh,” He answered with his most charming smile, and Ivy bit her lip to keep from laughing as her mother apparently thought he was telling the truth. She knew for a fact that Eileen was probably going to be spending the day with her _beau_ , and not want to see Derek. Or really anyone other than Nick and perhaps her daughter. Derek himself walked towards her, winking when his face was out of Leigh’s line of sight and leaning down to give her a kiss. One, she was sure, was meant to show off to Leigh.  It was gentle and slow, like it was something they did all the time. “I’ll see you later, Darling.” He finally said grabbing his wallet and keys from her dresser and making his way out the door.

Leigh sat down primly on the couch as Derek left the apartment. Ivy was already regretting asking him to leave, but she knew she needed to face her mother alone. For one thing, letting these things build up, or having someone do interference just meant blow ups later down the line, and she really wanted to avoid another one of those. They had been doing so much better since Bombshell started, but it was still a precarious situation.  She and her mother were alike in some ways, as much as Ivy hated to admit it.

“So, I guess you two really are together.”

“Yes, we decided that was what we wanted.”

“I hope you know what you are doing.” There was censure in Leigh’s tone, and Ivy tensed. “The last time you let that man into your life like this, you ended up taking drugs.” Not exactly the truth, and Ivy barely kept herself from rolling her eyes. She could remember how Leigh had been more than happy with Derek in the beginning. She walked into the kitchen to grab the food and bring it back to the bedroom and begin setting things up as she answered.

“It wasn’t nearly that simple, and you know that. You also know it wasn’t like I was taking recreational drugs, it was prescribed and I wasn’t thorough enough to keep on top of the side effects.” She had changed doctors too. When you are taking three prescriptions just to take care of the symptoms of the first one, that was too much.  The fact the Doctor never thought about it had made her loose her trust in him.  “And you can’t blame Derek for that.”

“Of course I can. If he hadn’t been so hard on you...”

“While I won’t argue that he could have been better, he was my director, and he felt he needed to be.” It was one of the reasons she and Derek had imploded the first time. She had everything so twisted up together, and he had things compartmentalized. There was girlfriend time, and there was actress time and while she normally responded better to Tom’s softer attempts at correction, Derek was more of a blunt in your face type and it hadn’t worked out well. The instability of their relationship off stage hadn’t helped matters either.  The show and their relationship had been too twisted together to separate. At least for her.  She wasn’t sure what Derek thought about it.

They had done better at Ronnie’s show, he had been less harsh, and she hadn’t been so affected by it. But by then she had finally started to let him go, so she wasn’t so tied up with him.  She had been healing and learning how to compartmentalize her life so what happened with Bombshell didn’t happen again. Sam had helped her find a good therapist to help her deal with the non-medically induced issues that came out of that whole mess. It seemed to be working.

“I love him, Mother,” She finally said. “That’s not up for debate. Whether we work it out or not will be seen. We are going to try things a bit slower this time, and actually work on keeping it together rather than letting the pieces fall where they may. But that is our decision, and our lives. You have no input in this.”

“Well, excuse me for wanting what is best for my daughter!” Leigh seemed insulted. Ivy gave her a pointed look. “Beyond all the problems, he made you cry, he humiliated you in front of your peers. How could you take him back after all that?”

“Because I love him, and I wasn’t perfect either.” She still shuddered to think about Dev’s hands on hers. She didn’t remember most of that night, thank god, due to the alcohol, but she still had flashes that she rather wished she couldn’t remember. And she had used Derek a few times in her quest to discredit Karen Cartwright. She couldn’t blame him for everything. “And we have other reasons to actually put some effort into it this time.”

“What would that be?”

“I’m pregnant.” She took a sip of the sweet tea her mother had brought with their meals. Leigh looked at her, apparently in shock.

“You’re what?”

“Pregnant. With Child. In the family way. Whatever euphemism you want to use.”

“How could you do this to yourself?” Leigh said her voice honestly sorrowful. Ivy felt really tired at the moment. How she wished her mother could be like other mothers and happy about a grandchild. “This is not the time to take off from work and go play house. And everyone is going to think...”

“What? That I trapped Derek?” The thought about how this would play as far as public relations went had gone through her mind once or twice. Before Derek’s downfall from grace, she had wondered if people would think she had done it to tie herself with him, but now she wasn’t sure how it would play out.

“They are going to know you were one of his...girls.” Ivy had to raise an eyebrow at that. Leigh after all had almost promoted the idea of hanging onto Derek in the start. Had wanted Ivy to be one of his _girls._ She wondered why all the late aggression came from.

“Well, to be fair, I was.” She knew Karen already thought so, and many of the people from the original cast of Bombshell. It hadn’t been a state secret that they had been seeing each other. “And I wasn’t really secretive about it. I don’t think in the end it's going to matter much.”

“The timing...”

“Doesn’t matter in the end, does it? I’m having a child, it's not exactly something I planned but it's going to happen.” She seemed calmer about this in front of her mother then she really felt. She had gone back and forth on whether she could be a mother to this child since she learned she was pregnant. But for some reason, defending herself in front of her mother actually made her sure she could do this. “Besides, just think of all the new reasons you’ll have for shopping.”

“I can’t believe you are actually going to go through with this.” Leigh stood up, picking up her make-up bags and walking towards the door. “I just...” She turned for one last look at Ivy.” I’ll talk to you later.”

Ivy sighed as the door closed, still sipping on her tea. That had gone both better and worse than she had expected. But at least her mother knew. She rubbed her stomach, wondering if the baby could feel it yet.

“Don’t worry munchkin. Grandma will love you eventually,” she found herself saying. “She just needs some time to get used to the idea.” Despite the morning sickness, she felt suddenly famished and reached forward for the linguine that her mother had purchased for her. “I hope you like Italian,” she continued speaking to her child, feeling a little ridiculous yet calmed at the same time.

Maybe she could get a hang on this motherhood stuff.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Parents are told, and people start speculating.

Derek realized halfway home he had forgotten his tie at Ivy’s, but he wasn’t too concerned. After all, it wasn’t like they weren’t going to see each other again or that he needed it in the foreseeable future. Plus, she had texted him to let him know she would be coming over later that night after a few late day meetings about _Bombshell_ and its future.

He walked into his apartment and scrunched up his nose. Being away for the whole night had brought awareness that his apartment, while not completely odorous, was definitely not refreshing. Beyond taking a shower and finding his suit that he had planned on wearing to the Tonys he hadn’t spent long on cleaning up. The smell of half open bottles of alcohol lay in the air, along with the general sense of brooding. Curtains were drawn, leaving the whole place in darkness even though it was broad daylight.

He walked around grabbing all the bottles, capping the ones that still had anything in it and putting it in his bar cabinet, although there were few to find. He had definitely laid waste to his collection. The recycling bin overflowed with glass bottles and a few plastic ones as well.

He plugged in his tablet and phone as he started to straighten up the bedroom. His mind drifted back to Ivy, and what they would do that night. She was going to pick up dinner for them and they were going to talk about where they wanted to go from here. He had to admit the cleaning also helped him fed off the nervousness that had started to settle in.

She wasn’t wrong about the smell, he thought offhandedly - the place did smell a little like a dive bar. Thankfully most of the mess was in the bedroom, as he had stayed primarily in there, outside of having to pick up deliveries.

He put the television on as he cleaned and bemoaned the fact he had told his cleaning service to take the week off, listening to the post-Tony coverage. It was just background noise as the two hosts debated who had the best dress, who was the biggest surprise, and of course the fact that it had been a battle between _Hit List_ and _Bombshell_ , which oddly enough had many ties between them.

 _Bombshell_ ’s future was still up in the air as to a continuing run, but _Hit List_ was sold out till the next year, so they were good. He hadn’t had any angry calls from Jerry so he assumed that hadn’t changed. He suspected that Jerry was even madder at him for the bad publicity then his ex-wife was mad at him for his bad behavior.

“...Of course one of the more surprising events of the evening was controversial director Derek Wills speech. It appears the director, who recently admitted to sleeping with his actresses for parts, is back together with his on and off again girlfriend Ivy Lynn, who later won the Best Actress award in a musical. As you may recall, Lynn has also been in the gossip columns for her troubled entrance to Broadway.

“Although it seems like she’s back on the high road now, having starred in the critically acclaimed _Bombshell,_ for which she won a Best Actress Tony. It is also rumored that there might be more reason for the reunion between the formerly troubled star, and her currently troubled director.” Derek looked up at that. While most of it was public knowledge, and he was already prepared for people to talk about his speech, he hadn’t expected there to be other rumors.

“It's been reported by sources that Ms. Lynn was recently seen shopping for baby clothes. We may be seeing a Lynn-Wills production of a different variety in the near future.”

He hoped she had told Tom, because as antagonistic as the two of them got, he didn’t think Tom deserved to find out his best friend was having a baby on a gossip show. Derek shut the TV off, too annoyed to watch further. Being called a troubled director he could take. But he didn’t want Ivy, and especially their child to be gossip fodder because of it.

And then it dawned on him who else wasn’t aware of his impending fatherhood. It was unlikely his father would care, but his mother would be upset if she found out online that she was finally going to be a grandmother before he told her in person- or by phone rather.

Growling in frustration he walked over to the phone and scrolled down his contacts till he reached his mother’s number. He didn’t get along well with either of his parents, although his relationship with his mother was considerable more amicable than that with his father. Hitting dial, he half hoped it would go to answering machine. Not that it would have made her much happier than hearing about it on a gossip site.

“Hello?” He rolled his eyes at her false sense of curiosity. His mother checked the id before picking up. She knew perfectly well who was calling.

“Hello, Mum.”

“Derek!” she exclaimed, as if she didn’t know. But he thought he sensed a little bit of genuine joy lingering in there. “It's not a holiday, so you can imagine my surprise.” Derek had come by his sense of sarcasm naturally.

“Not a full minute and you are already laying in the guilt.”

“Got to be efficient,” She joked. “Now I assume there was a particular reason for this call, as like I said you usually keep your calls to holidays and birthdays.” It wasn’t exactly true; they conversed more often than that. But their main source of conversation was over email. His mother had always enjoyed writing long letters, so had enjoyed emailing. Although why she ever thought that he’d be interested in his cousin Steven’s kids or Aunt Maisie's great tea cozy collection he’d never know.

“You wouldn’t be wrong. I’m guessing you watched last night?”

“Of course I did. Granted, I had to have the neighbor’s boy set up the feed, but I watched. It wasn’t the best quality. Although I must admit you gave something for the ladies to gossip about.”

“What are they saying?”

“Eloise thinks you are romantic to just blurt it out in front of everyone, and Mabel thinks you messed up and were trying to make it up to her. Mabel by the way is currently going by “Veronica.” Mabel Alamaine, a woman who lived two houses down from his mother, had been a life time family friend. She also hated her name with a passion and regularly changed it. His mother regularly ignored the changes.

“A little of both, really.”

“Was this the same Ivy you wrote about? I thought you said things were over between you two.”

“They were. But we decided to try and make things work. And we got some news.”

“Are you getting married again? I’ll have to dig out my passport.” She did sound a little excited at the prospect, although the words were in jest.

“No, not married, although you might still want to dig out your passport in a few months. Ivy’s pregnant.”

“She’s pregnant.”

“That’s what I said.” There was silence on the phone for a second. “And before you ask, _yes it's mine._ ”

“Well, you must admit it's a bit surprising. I had adjusted to the idea that you’d never give me grandchildren, married to your work as you are, and you tell me this woman you’ve been off and on about for the better part of a year and a half is having a baby. It takes a moment to filter it through.” His mother sighed. “I love you dear, but please tell me you aren’t staying with this woman because of the baby. I can assure you from experience that doesn’t help at all.” Derek flopped back onto his newly made bed and sighed. He had always been aware that his parents’ marriage had mostly been an amicable arrangement, but he tried not to think about the side connotations of that. Or of his father’s somewhat well-known affairs.

“No, Mum, I’m not. She didn’t even tell me about the baby until yesterday.”

“Are you happy?” There was no teasing as the rest of the conversation had held.

“Yeah.” As he thought about it, he really was. Yes, his career was ‘troubled’ as that announcer had phrased it, but other things seemed to finally be settling into place. He certainly couldn’t fall much further. He wouldn’t describe himself as ecstatic, but for the first time in a long time he felt something close to happy. Last night he had regained his love for the theater, and earned himself a third chance with a woman he was in love with. The rest would come in time, hopefully.

“Then good. Although I do think I need to meet this woman.”

“Mother.” He rubbed his face with his free hand. The last thing he needed was for Ivy to get grilled by his mother. They had just gotten things in place; he didn’t need her running again.

“No, Derek, I insist. If she is to be the mother of my grandchildren...

“Grandchild. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Grand _child_ ,” she repeated, “I need to meet her. Welcome her to the family as it were.”

“Well, there’ll be plenty of time for that. However, it's not going to be anytime soon. She’s still contracted to _Bombshell_ , and there isn’t a lot of time for out-of-country traveling.”

“Who says she’ll have to travel. For goodness sake’s, Derek. She’s pregnant. I wouldn’t force her to go through an eight hour flight. It's been far too long since I’ve taken a shopping trip through Manhattan, and I need to see this new show of yours.” Derek sat up, not sure he liked where this was going.

“Mum...”

“I’m coming, Derek.” She sighed, “And I miss seeing you. I love your emails, but I miss being able to hug my son.”

“Fine,” He said, praying Ivy would forgive him for this surprise. “Just...take it easy on her. I don’t want to scare her away already.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” The tease was back in her voice.

~*~

James Lynn was not prepared to be a grandfather. It wasn’t that he did not want grandchildren. In fact he was looking forward to being a grandfather eventually. But with his son perpetually single, and his daughter focused on her career, he hadn’t expected it to come for several years yet.

So when his wife called ranting about their daughter’s irresponsible choices, winding her way down to acceptance and eventual joy over the upcoming grandchild, he was silent in surprise. His daughter was usually the responsible one. It wasn’t that he had never had to help her out of a jam a time or two, but in general he wouldn’t call her irresponsible.

His baby girl was going to have a baby. He probably should stop referring to her as a baby; after all she was over thirty. It wasn’t like she was incapable of raising a child. He was not worried about her ability to take care of the child. He just didn’t like the idea of her doing it alone.

She hadn’t mentioned any man in her life the last time she called. As far as he knew she hadn’t been seeing anyone, too focused on her career. He was amazingly proud of her, and had been really disappointed he hadn’t been able to be there on her opening night on Broadway. He’d been home sick with the flu. But still, he had called, and she hadn’t mentioned anyone she’d be spending the evening celebrating with. Leigh hadn’t said anything either.

The only man he could recall her seeing in the recent past was Derek Wills. And given the press the man was getting right now he was almost certain he didn’t want that man anywhere near his daughter. He could only hope that Ivy had been seeing someone else and hadn’t wanted to spoil things by telling her parents.

“Who's the father?” he finally asked when Leigh had taken a breath after rambling about baby clothes she would get the forthcoming granddaughter.

“Oh - Derek, darling. You knew she was seeing him.”

“I thought they had broken up.”

“Well, they did, but you know how it goes. Sometimes when you love someone it's hard to give it up. How many times did we break up when we first saw each other?”

Once. And that had lasted about four hours. But he decided to not bring it up. He had long learned that the trick to a successful marriage was to pick your battles.

“I’ve been reading about him.”

“Oh, Darling, please tell me you aren’t going to try and scare him away. She’s not a teenager anymore. And it takes a lot of courage to go in front of that crowd and say that he loved her.”  It appeared once Leigh had gotten her rant out; she didn’t mind the idea as much.

“What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t watch the Tonys?”

“I watched, you know I always watch to see you.” If he had been skyping instead of a simple phone call, he knew he would have seen her smiling. He felt no problem admitting that he liked seeing his wife work.

“Derek won for Choreography for _Hit List_.” It must have been during a bathroom break. Or it was one of the rewards that didn’t really get airtime, but since he was controversial right now it probably would have gotten more ratings to use him.

“And...”

“He got up there and basically proclaimed that he was in love with our daughter. Quite romantic I think.”

“If he meant it.” James was not about to budge on this. He would have to sit down and talk with this...younger man. A man who was close to a decade older than his daughter and didn’t seem to give her the respect she deserved. “He’s got a reputation.”

“I know. I’ve actually met him, you know.” She sighed. “James, as much as we would like to, we can’t choose her partner for her. She’s going to choose, and she keeps choosing him. At least this time it looks like he’s choosing her right back.”

“And having a baby.”

“And having a baby. Although the timing is atrocious.”

“You had a child right after your first Tony.”

“Which is how I know. She seems happy though, and that is what matters in the end, isn’t it?”

“I need to meet this man.” He needed to see the man who made his little girl cry, who stole her heart and broke it. He needed to get the measure of the man who would raise his grandchild.

“You _have_ met him, darling. Remember that party we went to at Harvey Fierstein's place?”

“Barely. That was a while ago.”

“He was there. We didn’t really meet, but Harvey pointed him out.”

“I don’t recall.” He paused. “I’ll be willing to give this director a chance, but I do think we need to sit down with the boy.”

“You do realize he’s 40 years old and therefore not a boy?” She teased. “I’ll talk to Ivy about it when I see her again. I’m pretty sure she’ll not want to see me again today. We did not end our lunch well.” She paused. “Speaking of which, I never ate lunch.”

“How about I came and have lunch with you.”

“At this point, it will be more like dinner.”

“Either way, I would love to share a meal with my darling wife.”


	3. Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek and Ivy have talks with their respective best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any mistakes lingering. I am still without a beta for this, so I'm editing and posting as I go. I have had alot of this written awhile back, so its like looking at it anew, but that doesn't make up for the lack of a good beta.
> 
> I welcome any constructive criticism as well.

When she told Tom at the director and cast meeting that afternoon, it had been a mixed reaction. At first he had been happy for her, as her friend. But then the realities of the situation filtered in and he realized what it would mean for the show.

“We’ll have to change a few of the dance moves, but it shouldn’t be that bad. And costuming will have to be notified.” She raised an eyebrow but said nothing as Tom went into director mode. “This all depends on if the show is going to be on much longer. Eileen really had only planned on keeping it out till the Tony’s, but with all the fanfare the Tonys gave us, we might get a longer showing.”

“Most likely. That is why I’m going to talk to my understudy and have her take a show or two a week. Just to get her used to it. Jessica is doing a fine job.” She hated the idea of not being a part of the show, but she knew realistically sooner or later she would have to move aside. She could possibly handle another couple of months, but the dance routines wouldn’t be very conducive the further she was along. So maybe two months at best, probably more like one if she was realistic. She tried not to worry about what would happen after that.

“She’s not you.”

“Well, of course not,” she teased. “But she’ll get it done, and people will love it.” She had gotten a lot better at that. Being gracious and allowing other people in the spotlight. Funny. Despite all those years in the ensemble, she had never really been okay with being there. Not until she realized her desire to be a star, to be Marilyn, had become more important to her then her own life. It had been a rude and potentially fatal awakening. If it hadn’t been for Sam and the man sitting beside her in the theater, she might not have been here to discuss this. She closed her eyes and tried to dispel that memory.

“When did you find out?”

“About a month ago. The last couple weeks I’ve been contemplating what way I should go. I’m almost three months. It was kind of funny, she thought, that that morning when she and Derek were relaxing before opening day, and he had settled down on top of her, his head resting on her stomach, they had already been parents. The estimate put it around opening day, though at first she had thought maybe it had been her birthday. Not, she supposed, that it mattered in the end when it had happened. It had, and now she would have to deal with it.

“Wow, I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.” He paused. “It's not JFK is it?”

“Simon? No.” She laughed. “That never happened.” The only relationship she had post Boston had been a month and a half relationship around Christmas with an investment banker. That was over six months ago. Simon had been a bit of a fantasy, but she was kind of glad she had ended up with Derek that night.

“Then who...” Tom must have suddenly connected the dots. His face got stormy. “Derek. Is that why the two of you are trying things again?”

“No,” she replied, trying to reassure her friend he had nothing to worry about. “He didn’t know anything about the baby till after the Tonys.” She swirled her tea. It seemed to be the first of her cravings. Sweet tea. “You know how I feel about him.”  Just like she knew how Tom felt about Derek.

“Yes. I was the one hearing you cry over him while you puked out pills.” She tried not to flinch at the reminder, her thoughts already having gone there earlier. 

“Tom,” she said, trying to make him understand. Tom had never been a big fan of their relationship, finding it too likely (and ultimately being right about) that Derek would hurt her. But Tom had his own biases, and didn’t see what she saw. Besides, the pills were not Derek’s fault, despite his manipulation into getting her to take the initial medication. It had taken a few meetings with the therapist for her to stop trying to spread the blame for her own actions onto others.  She had been resistant, but Sam had pushed for it, and after she settled into it, it had helped.

“What? I know you say the pills had nothing to do with him, but you can’t tell me he didn’t have a little influence in that. He’s the one who convinced you to take the prednisone in the first place.”

“He did not convince me to take the other three medications.” She responded, annoyed. “And he didn’t convince me to drink on top of four medications and go have sex with Karen’s boyfriend.” Tom was one of the few who knew about that. The others being Sam, Karen and now Derek. And of course, Dev, who she thankfully had not run into since Boston. Perhaps she had paid enough for her sins and would never see him again.

“But he did break your heart.”

“Yes, and I did a pretty bang up job of hurting him too.”

“Really?” Tom scoffed. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Tom, I know you and Derek don’t get along, but please understand that there is more to Derek then you allow yourself to believe.” She sighed, turning back to her drink. “Do you honestly think he doesn’t care?”

“I think he cares about himself. I just find it hard to watch my best friend put herself in a position to get hurt again.”

“We are both going into this with our eyes wide open Tom. We both know this is our last chance at getting it right. And before you mention it, we already agreed that whatever happens between us, it doesn’t affect our daughter.”

“Already know the gender?”

“Well, no. I still have a month or so till they can even try that, but I have a good feeling it's a daughter.” Perhaps it was a newly implanted maternal instinct, but something told her she was going to have a baby girl. It was way too soon to know, and it wasn’t as if she would be completely disappointed if she had a son.

“A star, just like her mother.” Tom teased. She smiled at his compliment and the tension in the room dissipated a little. She knew Tom would never truly be comfortable with her relationship with Derek. He and Derek had a long way to go before they were ever happy about the other one’s presence in their lives. They were getting better though, working better together. But beyond professionalism, and their connection through mutual friends, the two of them preferred not to be around one another if they could help it.

“She might decide to do something else then Broadway.” She remembered her mother saying how she had wanted something else for her daughter then to follow in her footsteps. Ivy couldn’t imagine not giving her child the experience of loving Broadway, but she might not feel that was her calling.

“I doubt it. It's in her genes. Even if she does, I bet it will be something related. I just can’t see the child of you and Derek Wills wanting to be that disconnected to theater.” He took a drink of his own tea, frowning. She knew he wasn’t too fond of the sweetness. She did warn him to ask for it half and half at least. “Do you have any names yet?”

“I barely am to the point where I am accepting the baby’s existence, let alone trying to come up with names. I have maybe one or two but nothing that stands out. I haven’t talked to Derek about it all.”

“What were the names you picked out so far?”

“Madison and Rhaella. James if it’s a boy.”

“Not bad. You know Tom is an excellent boy’s name.”

“Yes, I can see that going over with Derek real well,” she laughed. “Maybe as a middle name. “

“And of course I get godfather rights,” Tom said, leaning in as to push his point.

“None of us are religious,” she said with a raised brow. “ _Especially_ you.” She knew that religion had been one of the stalling points of Tom and Sam’s relationship. “I don’t see how godparents will be involved. However you can be assured that you will be Uncle Tom.”

“I really _am_ happy for you, Ivy,” He said, squeezing her hand. “I’m happy things are finally turning out so well for you.”

“Thanks, I am too. And things seem to be doing better for you as well. I heard rumors of a film deal?” She raised a brow, and took a drink, a grin developing behind the lid.  It felt good to be happy for once, and also to be able to change the topic from her life onto her best friend’s.

“Julia and I were asked to make a script for a movie. We don’t know if we are going to do it or not. Things have been so strained between us lately; it might be a better idea to take a break.” He sighed, and she leant over to squeeze his arm.

“You should do it. You don’t really have much to do with _Bombshell_ except occasional edits, and you should go for a new project. And it's something different, something challenging.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Yeah, what do you plan on doing when _Bombshell_ is done with its run or you go on maternity leave?”

“I don’t know.” She really didn’t. “I guess I’ll have to see what else is out there when it comes time.”

~*~

When Derek arrived at Eileen’s office, the look she gave him as he walked in told him she was already aware of the baby. She was on the phone, so he settled down on the couch till she was finished. She was dressed casually for her, which meant she had not planned on coming to the office today. Ivy was probably right when she said Eileen had planned to spend the day with Nick and not a single other person.

“Well, you certainly gave me new problems today. I thought I was done with your love affairs with my Marilyns, but apparently not.”

“Affairs?” He never saw his relationship with Ivy as an ‘affair.’  If he was honest Rebecca could be under that heading.  Daisy too, but he refused to dwell on Daisy. Plus she was never a Marilyn.

“Really?” Eileen could always see through his denial and bullshit.  It was one of the many reasons he considered her one of his closest friends.

“Alright,” he said, conceding. He might have never gone through with sleeping with Karen, but his interest had been apparent enough that others remarked on it as if it had already happened. “Although I wouldn’t call it an _affair_.”

“Something different this time?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” She seemed surprised, which irritated him. “Did no one believe me when I said I love Ivy?”

“There are many shades of love, Derek, and we’ve been here before. The last time I ended up with two broken hearted Marilyns and one who basically poisoned herself to get away.” It took him a second to realize she was referring to Rebecca, as she had no way of knowing the truth about Ivy.  She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had as much trouble with a director and the leading actress. But then _Bombshell_ was always a difficult child, so why shouldn’t its cast and crew be likewise.”

“Well, I meant as I plan on spending the rest of my life with her.”

“Really?” Sometimes he hated how graceful she could make every expression look, even disbelief. “Is that an announcement?”

“No.  Don’t worry.”

 “I’m not worried. Well, not really worried. I just want to know that I’m not going to have an emotionally unstable Marilyn.”

“That’s up to her.” He debated warning her that Ivy was pregnant. Emotional stability might a problem regardless of his involvement. Although he supposed he could be blamed for that too, if Eileen wanted to.

“And, how are you?” She stepped around her desk and walked to the chair beside the couch, sitting as gracefully as she did anything. Derek had always wondered if she had taken regal lessons or something. It made him feel like he should sit up, which annoyed him, so he slouched further.

“Fine.”

“I meant what I said last night. Give it time, Derek. They learn to forgive eventually.”

“I probably need to find another agent.”

“She’s not responding to your calls?”

“Not since I let that article go out.”

“Well, considering it's her job to make you look good, I would say that wouldn’t make her happy at all. It makes her look like she’s not doing her job. Why did you do it anyway? I mean, Ana Vargas was taking back her claim. You could have gotten away with everything.”

“Honestly?” She nodded while giving him a look that he read as saying “As if I wanted anything else.’ “I felt like I had finally hit rock bottom.” He sighed, and looked at the ceiling not wanting to watch her expression as he told her. “Ivy was coming to meet with me when Ana told me that she was going to let me go on the wrongful termination. She said something that just...”

“Hit you with reality?”

“Yeah. And then I realized I _was_ really disgusted with myself. I didn’t enjoy my job anymore, I was unhappy with my decisions both personally and professionally and it just seemed to be digging myself a deeper hole.”

“You really do love her, don’t you?”  Her tone was fonder at the moment, and a soft smile graced her features.

“What?” He was startled by the change of subject.

“Ivy. She got through to you when none of us had.” Eileen’s smile turned contemplative. “I’ve noticed in the past that she got to you more than anyone. When other people’s opinions just rolled off your back, somehow hers stuck a little deeper. I just didn’t realize it was because you were in love with her.”

“Well, to be fair, I didn’t realize it myself till a few weeks ago.”

“Distracted by the fantasy of Karen, I suspect”

“Yeah, that’s done with.”

“I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.”

“I honestly thought we could be something.” He wasn’t sure why he admitted that.

“Oh, I know. But I think things ended up the way they should have. Well, mostly. I wouldn’t have had the career dampening article bit.”

“Well, I felt I needed to make it up to people somehow. Karen, Ana, Ivy.”

“Not Rebecca?”

“Hell no. She was an awful musical actress. I don’t need to give her an apology for what I said about that. You know full well she only came out with the story because she was pissed I said she wasn’t good in the musical.”

“You implied she made herself deathly ill to get out of it.”

“Well, I think we all know she did.”

“Still, Derek one day you are going to have to learn diplomacy and tact.” Eileen was smiling though. “You managed not to insult her again in the article, so there is that. Daisy didn’t come across as well.”

“Well, it was a totally different situation.”

“She’s dating Jerry now, you know.”

“Seriously?”

“Hmm.” She said in confirmation, her mouth quirking in amusement. “There was a post in the gossip column of their “romantic interlude” after the Tony’s.”

“I question both their tastes. And their sense.”

“Well, she’s ambitious and has lost her sense of anything to lose. She’s the Diva now. And Jerry...Well, Jerry is Jerry and there is no helping him.”

“Did you ever get _My Fair Lady_ back?”

“I did.” She raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject, but she was quick to catch on. “Are you asking for another try at it?”

“I would like that, yes.” She was silent for a moment, contemplating. He knew that for the next few years, it was going to be a hard sell. His name wouldn’t be as much as a draw, and it would take a while for people to trust him again. The fact that he had a chance with a few people he had hurt more personally than most should have been seen as a miracle. But Eileen was one of those people. And that had been their project together, all that time ago before _Bombshell_ blew them away.

Still, it bugged him a little to have to essentially beg for a job. It had annoyed him when he had to fight for the Wiz, and then lost it, it annoyed him even more to have to work at getting a job now.  Although he could bite back his annoyance because now he understood the _why_ part of it.

“ _Bombshell_ is my main concern at the moment. We are still deciding how long to keep it running. We’ve had more sells now that we won best musical. However, if you wanted to do some of the preliminary work, I think I’d like to work with you again.” She smiled. “Just try not to sleep with the leads in this one.”

“I think that I’m done with that, now,” he said, his tone sharp, but focused on himself. She nodded.

“You better be. I don’t think Ivy would be willing to give you another chance.”

“No, probably not.”

“How did things go with her, anyway?”

“Better than expected. We are going to try things again.”

“That’s good. Especially as you seem dedicated to making it right this time.”

“You seem unsurprised.”

“That you ended up with Ivy?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I saw how you were looking at her at the opening. I wasn’t ever totally sure, but it seemed like you were finally getting to the point where you were making a choice.”

“I spent a long time thinking Karen was it for me.” She didn’t argue, as the point had already come up.

“Because she was your muse, professionally?” He nodded. “Derek, I could tell you already that wouldn’t work.” she commented to reiterate her earlier point. “Calling her your muse was probably the first problem. You put her on a pedestal, and then got upset when she failed to live up to _your_ plans. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest foundation to build a relationship. Although I can’t say you did much better with Ivy” Eileen had grown fond of Derek over the years, found him to be one of the most talented directors she had worked with and also found him to be a good personal friend. However, that did not blind her to his faults.

Derek had always been known to date within his projects, especially since the end of his second marriage. She had known that. It usually wasn’t anything serious - Derek also didn’t really do serious either. But it had seemed different on Bombshell. She had been annoyed with him; playing the two possible leads against each other hadn’t done them any favors. But she supposed that in the end it had done him even less.

Something clicked between him and Karen. Professionally they were unstoppable together. And she imagined he had hoped it would extend to privately. But Eileen had never truly thought it would work. She hadn’t quite thought that Ivy and Derek would have ended up together again either, but she knew there was something there.

“I guess I have to prove to Ivy that I’ve changed in that regard.”

“You’ll need to prove it to more than Ivy.  You have to want it too. You can’t change for someone else - you have to want to change.” She knew that well enough from her own marriage. She had just ended up miserable.

“I do.” She believed him. She supposed everyone had their breaking point, the point where they realized something had to change or they were going to lose it all. Derek had just had his.  The proof would be in how he dealt with his relationship with Ivy, how he interacted with his co-workers. 

“I’m glad. And I do hope you and Ivy manage to keep it together. She’s good for you.” He smiled and gave a nod in agreement. “Although I do think you should probably avoid working together for a while. That never seemed to do you good.”

“True. Although there’s something else I need to tell you.” He might as well.  He knew that Ivy had told Tom.  Or was telling Tom.  This trip to see Eileen had been spur-of-the moment and he couldn’t quite remember when the meeting with the Bombshell cast would end.

“What’s that.”

“Ivy’s pregnant.”

“Really?” Eileen was surprised, and yet as she thought about it, it made sense. She had been getting reports that Ivy was starting to behave worryingly. Rumors had her dipping back into her prescription bottle, but she had it on good authority from Tom that Ivy wouldn’t go back there. “Would I be wrong in assuming it's yours?” She sat back and watched him.  Derek had never come across to her as someone who was eager to have children, but she sensed no negative emotions on the subject from him.

“No, you would not.”

“Was this the inspiration for your speech?”

“Ah, no. I didn’t know until afterwards. Apparently Ivy hasn’t told anyone, really. She wanted to wait till I knew about it and apparently I wasn’t making it easy for her to tell me.”

“Well, you certainly have done your best to look bad.”  She could imagine how Derek had made himself look the unattractive option for the father of Ivy’s child.

“Do you think I was wrong?”

“For telling the truth. No. Although I might question your reasoning for doing so.”

“Remember how I said Ivy said something that got me thinking? The night before the nominations, Ivy asked me to meet her at Table 47, said she needed to talk to me.”

“I’m guessing about the baby.”

“Probably, although we never got to that. Karen and Ana got to me first, telling me that Ana was going to take back the letter.”

“Thus removing the allegation, at least officially.” The both knew that after a while repeated reports of something make people assume it's the truth even if it's all rescinded.

“Ivy overheard it all. I guess it made her realize that I hadn’t changed, that I wasn’t...”

“Well, I would say it would make her question your loyalty to the relationship, but you two weren’t together at this point, am I right?”

“No. We broke up at Bombshell’s opening night because Ivy thought she was my consolation prize.”

“Was she?”

“NO.” He shakes his head. “Why does everyone think that?”

“You have priors, Derek.” She was frank. Derek’s inability to see things he didn’t want to see was something she was a bit tired of dealing with. “And also calling Karen your muse was a very public notion. People would assume that she was the target of your affections.”

“Well, the timing might be suspect, but I hadn’t gotten back with Ivy because Karen wouldn’t have me. Karen turning me down was probably the first step to clearing me of the...”

“Infatuation?” She supplied when he couldn’t come up with a word.

“Yes.” He leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. “Anyway, that night at 47, Ivy just looked at me with this look of utter disappointment, told me I never do the right thing and walked away. The next day I was at the interview, and he kept talking about how I was ratified from those accusations and it just didn’t sit right. Not with everyone I really care about basically walking away. So I told him what went on.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Only a little. Just because the repercussions professionally. I think its best that I did. It's not going to follow me around, waiting to come out of the woodwork anymore.”

“And we are less upset with you.”

“That too.” They were silent for a moment.

“So you are about to be a father.”

“So it seems.”

“How are you feeling about that?”

“Honestly I don’t even know.” It was the most honest he had been about it. “Happy. Surprised. Terrified.” And he was. “I never really considered the whole parenthood thing, so I’m not sure.”

“Does Ivy know this?”

“We haven’t really talked about it. She’s coming over later tonight to talk.”

“You two probably have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah.” He stood up. “I probably should go home.”

“Derek,” she said as he turned away. He turned to look at her. “For what it’s worth I think you’ll make a great father. When it is something you care about, you put your all into it. I can’t imagine you doing less for your own child.”

“Thanks,” was all he said, but she could tell he was surprised and a little touched by what she said. “I hope you’re right.”


	4. Talks continue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek and Ivy get down to actually talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Notes:  
> 1) Again, chapter is posted without beta-editing.
> 
> 2) This chapter refers to attempted suicide. If this makes you feel uncomfortable, please skip the parts alerted in ** asterisk**

After meeting with the _Bombshell_ team, Ivy had returned home and packed some overnight gear, just in case. She certainly hoped to spend the night, but there were a lot of things they needed to talk about, and some of it might turn out to require a night apart from one another. She stopped by a restaurant that she and Derek had both enjoyed and picked up some take-out before making her way across town to Derek’s penthouse.

The elevator ride seemed longer than usual, and she supposed it was because she was nervous. After all, they had always been good at the sex part of the relationship, just not the talking bit. This attempt at an actual relationship would hinge on them being able to do more than just jump each other. They’d have to be able to talk about things.  Beyond saving their relationship, they were going to be parents together.  Talking was a must.

Derek wasn’t in the living room when the doors opened, so she sat their food down on long wood table before tossing her bag on the couch. She hadn’t spent much time at his new apartment. He had moved in shortly before Boston, and they had kept to her place while the remodeling was done. She had been amazed that they had managed to make the master bedroom look almost exactly like his old one. The rest of the apartment was different bar the ceiling to floor windows at one end giving a view of the city and the furniture he had brought with him.

She loved the new open floor plan. She had loved his old apartment too. It wasn’t entirely her style - she preferred bright colors and hodgepodge decorative items. Derek was more slate and hardwood, very sleek. A part of her had to laugh as she considered what a child would do to it. She suspected it wouldn’t look quite so magazine cover ready.  But she also wondered how she was going to fit in here.  Either she moved in here or found a new apartment because the sunny apartment she loved so much was too small for a baby.  It had barely been big enough for her, if she was honest.  But it had been her first real apartment.  One she paid for rather then her parents. 

She found Derek in his office, his head buried into a script.

“What are you working on?” She asked, not knowing of any project he was involved with except for Hit List.  She leaned against the doorway.

“ _My Fair Lady_.” He looked up and smiled before going back to his work. “Decided to give a look over again while I waited.” She smiled as she watched him. She hadn’t seen him this enthused about a project since way before her birthday. Ever since he quit Bombshell he had been slowly losing enthusiasm. It was nice to see it back again. One of the many things that had attracted her in the first place was that he shared her love of Broadway and the stage.

“I’ve got dinner, if you want some.” She knew how he could get. If he was really involved, he could be in the zone for hours. She didn’t really mind. Tonight, however they were supposed to be talking.

“What did you get,” he asked shutting the script, which did surprise her. Usually it would take the phone ringing or some minor catastrophe for him to get out of the zone. She couldn’t help but smile that he was deciding to choose her over work.

“Lucio’s.” she said with a smile as he followed her out to the living room. “I figured since we both liked it...”

“Sounds perfect.” He responded, making his way past her to the kitchen to get out plates. “How did your meeting go?”

“Fine. Not many notes on our Tony appearance, although Tom now knows about the munchkin so there’s that.”

“Munchkin?”

“That’s what I’m calling the baby till I can find out what gender it is.” He moved his head in understanding as he dished out some of the lasagna that she had gotten.  Italian appeared to be the theme for the day.  She wasn’t about to complain.  One thing that she did love about being pregnant right now was that she had an excuse for all the carbs.

“Should I be worried about Tom coming to kill me in my sleep?” He joked.

“No,” she said with a laugh. “Although the usual amount of glares and commentary might peak a little.”

“Nothing I can’t handle. I told Eileen.”

“You actually went to see her?”  She was surprised, figuring Eileen would have been holed up with Nick today. Especially since she hadn’t been expected at the cast meeting today.  There would be a production team meeting with the cast in a few days.

“Yeah. Hence the script work.”

“You two are going to try to go through with it?” she asked as he handed her a plate.

“Well, she allowed me to work on it again. Whether we get anything done anytime soon is up in the air. _Bombshell_ is her current priority.”

“Yeah, Tom let me know that we might have a longer run now that we have Tony nominations to advertise with.”

“And wins,” he added, before taking a bite of his lasagna. He paused, closing his eyes in enjoyment of the food. Lucio’s never failed to be good. He still remembered when he and Ivy went there the first time. It was about a block or two from her house, a small family owned restaurant. The cook himself was an Italian immigrant who made the food his mother had made. But what he really remembered was that it had been he and Ivy’s first date, though they hadn’t called it that. They had been sleeping together for a few months by then, but they rarely spent time together just enjoying each other’s company. They would sometimes spend the evenings together, but usually there was work to be done or they simply just had sex. That night she had pulled him down the street, insisting that she was starving and introduced him to the best Italian food he had ever tasted.

They had spent a while there, getting to know each other better and for the first time they hadn’t spoken about the workshop, or anything to do with work. Not much anyway. They went there a couple times afterwards; it became _their_ place in a way. He hadn’t gone back after they broke up, not wanting to sit there and be stuck with all the memories, though his utter denial about caring for her came up with other reasons.

“Like it, I take it?” Ivy said, breaking into his thoughts. He opened his eyes to find her watching him with amusement in her eyes, and a large grin.

“I forgot how good their lasagna was.”

“Wait till you see what I got for dessert.” She teased, pushing the last brown bag over to him. He opened it up to see two plentiful servings of their ricotta cheesecake. “I figured we could use the treat tonight.”

He nodded, returning to his food. He hadn’t forgotten why she had come over, but he had pushed it out of the forefront for the time being. They had a lot to talk about. There were some things that couldn’t be pushed off, even if they wanted to. There were a lot of ghosts hanging out in their relationship that they needed rid of.

~*~

“I had stopped hoping that you would forgive me,” Derek admitted later. They were curled up on the couch together, talking things through, remnants of their cheesecake and empty mugs on the coffee table.

“Forgiven you for what?”

“For whatever made you look at me the way you did that night at 47. There is a lot to choose from.” The two weeks he had spent stuck up in his apartment before the _Tonys_ had given him a lot of time to think about the past two years.

She turned and looked at him. She was still surprised by his sincerity. Whatever had gone through his head in the last few weeks had changed him. He had hit his personal hard place and was trying climb out of the hole a better man. She could understand that. Her time in Boston had been her own personal hell of her own making, the last two weeks had been his.

“We never really talked about that, did we?”

“No. You told me you were going to tell me about the baby that night, but you never really explained what it was about Ana that made you so angry.”

“It wasn’t Ana, it was...” She sighed and sat up, moving to face him. “It was the repetitive idea that you don’t take these things seriously, and that you care more about your career then you do the people around you.”

“I care”.

“I know you do, but it's sometimes hard to see that.” At this point he had sat up too. “At the time I trying to think of how to tell you, and it just seemed like you would never live up to your responsibilities - or even see that they were there. Which of course brought up memories from before.”

“From Boston.” It was amazing how the name of a place got so saturated with meaning. Boston had been the site of her downfall. She had hit rock bottom. She couldn’t look back at Boston with any fond memories. Not even Derek telling her he loved her, as it was tainted by his actions with Rebecca, and she could never really know if he meant it or if she had just put more intent in his words then were really there.

When she had started things with Derek, she hadn’t expected it to go as long as far as it did. She hadn’t slept with him for the job, but she figured he wasn’t the type to stay around long. Still, she had hoped, and he had kept showing up. It hadn’t taken long for her to fall for him. As she once told Ronnie, she had a weakness for artistic geniuses, even ones as partial to being assholes as the man across the couch from her.

They had used each other in different ways. She couldn’t deny she had used him once or twice in her war against Karen, and afterwards she had always wondered if perhaps her manipulation had pushed him closer to her.

“Among other things,” she finally said. “I always felt like I was a consolation prize. I didn’t want our child to feel that way too.”

“You were never a consolation prize.” Derek said, and she could tell he believed it, but she still wasn’t sure it was the truth. “I know I didn’t say it well, or often, but I always cared for you.”

“Yes, I remember your speech on my doorstep.” _I thought you were my friend_. “You called us friends.”

“And we were. Among other things, as you pointed out.” He hadn’t been that drunk, she knew because he had followed her upstairs to get dressed and escorted her to the gala, and while it was clear he was inebriated, he was clearly not so far gone he would have forgotten. He stood up, running a hand through his already messy hair. He turned away from her for a second, gathering his thoughts she supposed, and then turned to her again. “You were my friend, and for a while it seemed like you were the only person who really liked me outside of Eileen.”

“So that’s why you continued our relationship? So you would have someone to care about you?” She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or not.  On one hand, it made her sad, but on another it made her angry to think she was just a warm body to hold onto.  Ok, so maybe she was sure what she felt about that.

“Partially. And because it was nice to have someone who cared as much about theater as I did; someone to spend the evenings with.”

“What you wanted was Karen.”

“What I wanted was the idea of Karen.”

“The difference being?”

“I was in love with the idea of taking this new found talent and making something of it. Being the discoverer. It was an amazing feeling, thinking I could mold her and make her into a star. You were already there, you had it already. You didn’t need me.”

 _You didn’t need me._ It hit her suddenly that Derek liked to be the savior, the person looked up to.  He liked being the one to take a so-so musical and make it into a masterpiece.  To take a green actress and turn her into a star.  She wasn’t sure if it was a need for control or just a need to be needed. Maybe both

“Oh, Derek, of course I did.”

“It didn’t seem so at the time.” It rarely did. Ivy had never seemed that vulnerable to him and he supposed he had been caught up with the fact that Karen had made him feel like he was needed while Ivy always seemed to be what _he_ needed. “You were amazing as Marilyn. And I have to admit there was some satisfaction at getting Tom all riled up. He was certain I was just using you.”

“Weren’t you?” He managed not to flinch at the question, though he felt hurt by it. However, his two weeks overthinking his choices the last two years had given him some clarity that she had a right to ask that.

“Maybe at first. Not the whole time.” He sat down on the coffee table, his knees touching hers and took her hands. “I really did care about you. I didn’t realize I was in love with you till much much later, but Boston wasn’t all carefree for me either. You started acting so strange, even before Boston.”

“Jealousy and pills. Bad combo.”

“We know that now,” he said, a brief smile on his face, “but at the time it seemed like you had just become this super diva.” Actually not what he would call it, but it was the closest term he could find. She had mood swings, there was that whole issue at Heaven and Earth and while he had done his best to get her in the show, she had been overly nice and it had just seemed like nothing had changed.

“Sam and Tom were the only ones to know how much I was on. I think at the end there I was on four or five medications. The original one for my vocal cords, then they kept adding on ones to deal with the side effects. And I was letting the role get to me.”

“Felt you were Marilyn?”

“In a way yes.” She looked down. She had to admit this to him now. “Boston was a low point for me beyond being shucked over for Karen and Rebecca. I did things there I am not proud of. Some of it you know, some of it you don’t.”

“I know about Dev.”

“I figured Karen would eventually have told you about that. I was surprised she didn’t.”

“I knew there was something going between you two, but I thought it was just professional jealousy.  I also figured everything would be normal once we got back to New York.

“You seriously thought things could continue the way they were?”

“Boston was not the highlight of my decision making either.”

“I don’t remember much about that night, only that I awoke the next morning horrified that I had done that. He wasn’t you, for one thing, and my broken heart wasn’t ready for anything else yet. And then he was Karen’s boyfriend, which I suppose drunk and drugged me thought was an _excellent_ choice.” She still couldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m still ashamed at what I did.” She had up to that point managed not to sleep with a man who was involved with someone else, and had been horrified when she woke up and realized she had crossed a line she had hoped never to cross. It was the first step in the wider wake-up call that Boston became.

“It’s probably best that I didn’t know.  Even hearing about it, knowing it doesn’t change anything doesn’t really keep me from feeling jealous and honestly wanting to punch him.”  He laughed.  “Well, punch him with more dedication, anyway.  Never liked the guy.”

“So, you know how I felt with Rebecca?”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to fully know. You knew my ideas on sex and relationships weren’t exactly regular.”

“You broke my heart. And it didn’t help that it was in such a public way. Everyone knew about it. So besides being heartbroken, I was humiliated too.”

“I’m sorry.” And he was. He hadn’t known the extent of what he had done at the time, had figured everything would work out in the end, but he remembered her face that day in Boston when she turned to him and let him know officially that they were through. And the even worse face she made when she walked in on Karen and he almost kissing. She hadn’t been expecting that, so her emotions were a little clearer on her face, a little harder to hide behind the “I’m fine” mask she took to wearing after she lost Marilyn to Karen.

“I know you are. I’m working on trusting you again, but it's hard, knowing how that felt once and not thinking it might come again.”

“I can’t promise you I won’t stumble from time to time, but I am trying to do better.”

“I know,” she said softly, and she did. She had been amazed when she had read the paper article describing all of his faults. But she still needed to tell him one more thing.

“Did Karen ever tell you what else happened in Boston? Why I was out for three days?”

“No. Tom said you had some sort of stomach virus.”

** ** ** **

“After I had lost the part to Karen, and then destroyed Karen’s relationship,” she rolled her eyes at herself, “which was mostly in spite, I was not in a good place. Being that low, combined with the side effects from my medication, I ended up trying to take the whole bottle. Really Marilyn-ing it up.”

“You...what?” His hold on her hands tightened, and she could see the shock in his eyes. Tom and Sam had been the only ones to know as far as she knew. She supposed they might have told Eileen since medical treatment had been needed.

“Sam caught me before I could really do anything and made me throw what I had taken up. He and Tom took me to the ER to make sure I was okay, and then kept me away from everyone until I could come off the medications and what not. It took at least two days for everything to clear my system, and another day of me actually owning up to what I had been doing before we all felt I could face the public again.”

Derek looked at her stunned. “I never knew.” He remembered thinking she looked pale, and wondering why she hadn’t talked to him for almost four days, but he had just assumed that it was the flu Tom said it was. He never would have guessed things had gotten so bad. And a part of him wondered how much did his actions play into what she did, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know.  How had he not noticed she had spiraled down so far?

“No one was supposed to.”

“You made it sound like Karen did.”

“I didn’t really tell her. I implied it, once, when I was trying to explain myself. Julia told me once that perhaps I needed to explain why I was sorry, not just say I was sorry. Not that it did much good. I was out of Bombshell, and then _Bombshell_ was out.”

“And we were done.”

“That too. Although we were done weeks before that. I think as soon as we both cheated on the other, we were done. That party was just the funeral rites so to speak.

“Are you better now?”

“Much, nothing to worry about,” she said with a smile. “When I got home from Boston I tossed out what medication I had, and also started seeing someone about what had led up to it.. I didn’t like what I had become and I felt I needed to find a way to change things, beyond not going to that particular doctor.”

** ** ** ** **

“I didn’t give you much choice.” She shook her head.

“I had a choice. I also had a choice when I could have asked for another medication and not just cover it up the symptoms with other medications till my body was driven to extremes by the chemical cocktail I was ingesting. But I can’t blame the medication for all of it. Dev...My decision making skills might have been impaired, but there was still an element of purpose there. I choose him because I wanted you to hurt like I did.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t exactly say it hadn’t hurt him.

“It's one of the reasons I was so reluctant to start things up with you again, and then tried to be casual later. I didn’t want to put myself there, but I was still in love with you, and it felt good having you there. And it seemed like our friendship had repaired. We do much better when we don’t have a show between us.”

“That’s true.”

“And when you seemed actually interested in being something more than casual, I was reluctant to believe you, but hopeful too. And then Karen told me you had asked her out, and suddenly it was like I was the consolation prize again. You couldn’t have your precious Karen, and I was so jealous over the last couple of months of how easy you two interacted, and it just seemed best to break ties. We seemed to do friendship so much better.”

“There was nothing there, Ivy” She sighed in frustration.

“Yes there was, and though you may have realized it wasn’t what you thought it was, it does us no good to dismiss it like that. You were infatuated with her. I could see it from when we first started. That's why it always bothered me that you called her your muse. Well, beyond the obvious that no woman likes their guy calling another woman a muse.” she paused. “And I think she was infatuated with you, too.”

“She’s in love with Jimmy.”

“And you say you are in love with me.”  He frowned at her phrasing.  “That doesn’t change the fact that you had a crush on her. And I’m going to have to learn how to be okay with that. It's not going to change simply because we had the epiphany that we want to really try this.”

“I don’t just say it, Ivy, I meant it. Every word.  I love you.”

“I know,” she said, holding a hand up to his face, enjoying the feel of his stubble against her palm. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe you. And I love you, and I want this to work. “She paused. “That morning, when you asked me why I suddenly stopped our arrangement, you seemed so certain there was nothing between you and Karen.” She had to know.  “Why were you suddenly so sure?”


	5. Reconnect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More talking, more reconnecting

He looked down. “Karen and I...we tried to see if there was anything there.”

“You slept together?”  She knew that was a possibility but it still hurt to hear him admit it.

“No!” He looked into her eyes. “No, but we were going to,” he said a little softer. “Except we realized that neither one of us was all there. Her heart belonged to Jimmy, and I was just starting to realize that mine belonged to you.”

“Was this before or after Daisy?”

“After. Daisy was right after...” She nodded, knowing what he meant. “Never regretted a night with someone more.”

“That was incredibly stupid of you.”

“Don’t I know it.” He half laughed, but she knew it wasn’t because he found it funny. That one mistake had nearly ruined several of his relationships, had nearly ruined his career.

“I think it goes without saying that when we have fights, that the appropriate reaction is not to sleep with someone else.” There was enough levity in her tone to gain a smile from him, but he nodded in understanding of the underlying tone of honesty.

She was tired of talking about his other women or her other men. What she wanted right now was to return to them. She shifted forward, leaning towards him for a kiss. He seemed to realize what she was after as he shifted forward off the coffee table and onto the couch, his lips not releasing hers till they were side by side on the couch. They shifted into a much more comfortable angle.

She loved his kisses. Derek could mesmerize you with a kiss. Back when she had been starry eyed, and thought him a prince; she figured he’d be the one who could wake up the princess with one of his kisses. She never saw herself as a princess. She wasn’t sure why, she certainly was in a field of business that would go along with that. Maybe it was because she could slip into being a princess when she wanted, and when Derek held her all she wanted to be was herself.

And for the first time in two years, that seemed like it was enough. She pushed away the ghosts of Rebecca Duvall, Karen Cartwright and Daisy Parker the backstabbing Diva and melted into him.  She shifted them so they were lying back on the couch, allowing for more range of movement.

She wanted to have him make love to her again, to know that he was only thinking of her, and her of him. No one else was in the room with them. He seemed to have the same urge, holding her tightly against him so that their bodies touched from chest to their socked feet. Or rather his ankles, as she was a little bit shorter then him without her heels.

Derek liked her on top. She figured he liked to have his hands feel to explore, rather than attempt to hold himself up. Tonight was no different as his hands ran up her sides, entwining into her hair momentarily before seeking out other interests. Her hands likewise explored his shoulders, enjoying the kisses too much to explore too far down. There was time for that after all. They could make out like teenagers on the couch if they wanted.

“As much as I love this, darling, perhaps we should move to a location that has a little more room,” he finally said a few minutes later. They were both breathing heavy, and their clothes were eschewed. She had somehow lost a sock. She simply nodded, standing to fix her top, and holding out a hand to him. He smiled softly and took it and led them into his room down the hall.

This was the first time she had been in this room for this reason. He had managed to get the new upper floor apartment right before Boston, and therefore hadn’t been fully moved in till after they were broken up. She had somehow still ended up on the lobby desk’s “welcomed guests” list. The room looked exactly like his old room, though the balcony was different, and a slightly different view greeted them. But for the most part, it was painted the same, and had the same frames and the same arrangement of furniture. It was larger though.

“How did you manage to replicate it so nicely?” she joked, as they walked towards the bed.

“It's amazing what you can pay someone to do.”

“Did you come in with a ruler?” she joked, allowing him to pull her close as he stopped a few inches short of the bed.

“No, but my home decorator did.” He leaned down and started to kiss her again.

“You have a home decorator?”  Her voice held laughter. He stepped away, though not far and looked at her.

“What, you think I could coordinate this all from Boston?” he asked with a teasing smile, sitting down on the bed and bringing her down to straddle his waist, wrapping his arms around her. “Besides, I don’t want to talk about the decorator, or the room.” He gave her a grin, one of the ones that had gotten her into bed with him in the first place. Even if he hadn’t been the artistic genius he had been portrayed to be (and was), she still would have lusted after him - the man was gorgeous and knew it well. It was everything underneath that, the lonely man with a golden touch for musicals, which made her fall in love with him.

“I love you,” she said softly, leaning her forehead against his.

“I love you, too.” he responded, equally as quiet and they began to kiss again. Slowly this time, unlike on the couch. Savoring, perhaps. All she knew is she could feel it down to her toes.

Derek had never failed when it came to kissing. It was something he was very skilled at. The rest of the act had its high and low points, usually depending on their mood. She _had_ been lying when she said he wasn’t good in bed. There had been some nights that had been less than spectacular, particularly when one of them was in an off mood. But most of the time it was good, and often it was great.

She was surprised however, when he slowed down and settled down beside her, drawing out the kisses. She wasn’t about to complain, as aforementioned he was definitely good at this. But a small part of her that was still able to think wondered at it. It was almost like he was trying to prove something. She wasn’t sure what, but she wanted to feel him pressed against her soon.

She enjoyed being wrapped up in him. However, just as she was about to push against him to bring them closer, the cellphone that had been stuck in her pocket started to ring.

“Damnit,” she said as she broke free from Derek’s embrace to grab to shut it off. She rejected the call, and tossed the phone onto the nightstand. “Sorry. Now where were we?”

“Not even curious as to who that was,” he said amused, stretching his neck when she aimed for the area under his ear.

“Not even a little bit,” she responded. Her tone and actions seemed to change his amusement to something else because it took little time for him to reattach himself to her, this time pressing her down into the sheets. He moved to lean over her partially, still allowing most of his weight to be on the bed beside her.

“I love you,” he stated as he leaned forward to reattach his lips to her own. She loved that he said it so freely now. She knew it was something new, that in time he probably wouldn’t say it quite so often because it just wasn’t him to do so, but for now she enjoyed its ready use. She also enjoyed the fact that this wasn’t a side note, or a confusion of language. He meant that he _loved_ her in all the ways she had hoped he had meant in Boston.

“I love you too,” she whispered back when they broke for air. “Now come here, you.” she grabbed him and enjoyed the sudden increase of weight as he came to lie against her. She then started to put her hands along the hem of his shirt, slowly working her way underneath it to touch his bare back.

This was the part they had always been good at.

Still, she could tell a difference.  Sex had never been bad between them. It had varied but she had had no complaints, really.  But there seemed to be a difference now that they were actually open with the feelings and he had admitted he loved her.  It was if there was an added element.  It seemed a bit fairy tale-ish but she half wondered if the old saying that making love was different then sex was true.

They didn’t rush through it, enjoying making each part last.  Making up for lost time, showing off how well they still knew each other’s bodies. Knew what buttons to push to make things enjoyable for them both.   Learning new ways, they reacted to each other.  It might have been the second time in two days they had come together, but they had been apart for several weeks, and before that three weeks they had enjoyed before Bombshell opened they had been apart for nearly a year. 

She didn’t think that much had changed as far as the physical went.  But their emotional connection to one another definitely changed.  They had allowed themselves to be friends first, then lovers.  Perhaps that helped them shake out the issues from their first relationship.

She really hoped so.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More conversations

“You are quiet,” she murmured into his neck as they cooled down.  They were nestled together on his bed,  with her slightly on top of him and his arm wrapped around her.

“Not enough breath,” he joked. “Does this even count as slow?”

“For us or in general?” She shifted so she was on her side and smiled down at him. One hand rose to slide into his hair. He had left the gel out so it was softer than usual. She could tell it was starting to get a little long as well. She found that appealed to her. “Probably not. But we did talk before we hopped into bed, so that is improvement.”

“Indeed.” He couldn’t help but grin in return, lifting up to kiss her. He shifted them further onto their sides to make it a little easier. “Are you staying?”

“Hmm,” she responded, kissing him again. “I thought that was the plan.”

“I was hoping so yes.” He paused for a second, but enough for her to notice.

“What?”

“What would you think about moving in?” She sat up and looked at him in confusion as she pulled the sheet up to cover herself.

“You want to live together?” She sounded surprised, which he supposed he could grant her. After all, neither of their previous attempts at a relationship had the idea of living together come up. Rarely did staying more than a weekend and even that had been only on occasion. But once the idea had come to him, he found himself liking the idea.

He shrugged in response to her question as he moved to sit against the headboard. “I figured why not try it...”

“I’m not sure we are ready for that,” she said looking out into the room for a second before turning back to him. “I mean the idea in general doesn’t make me want to run for the hills, but at the same time...Derek we just got back together _yesterday._ Maybe we should try having a normal dating relationship first, and then think about moving in together.” She paused before moving to face him completely, curling her feet under her body. A part of him wished he could take a picture of her right then. The silver sheet made her look almost like a mermaid, and her hair was in curls that flew everywhere, which was mostly his fault. It was probably the caveman instinct to enjoy the look of your partner when she clearly looked like that, but he wasn’t about to mention it out loud.

He wasn’t a complete idiot.

“How about this,” She said after a minute of silence, “as a compromise. Trial living together.”

“How exactly does that work?” Wasn’t living together living together?

“I’ll stay for a whole week. But I’ll keep my apartment. We wouldn’t be really living together, but we would be staying together then more than a day or two at a time. See how it goes.”

“And if it goes well?”

“Well, then, maybe we extend it. My lease is up in August. We can decide then if we are up to the living together thing.”

“I think we are.” She smiled at his confidence. She wished she shared it. The idea of living with Derek wasn’t an unappealing one, but she was worried they were trying too much too fast and in the end wouldn’t have the space to cool off if things got out of hand. She didn’t want them to start hating each other. On the other hand, not having somewhere else to go might push them into actually trying to solve their problems instead of letting them fester.  That had been a continuous problem before.

“You're the one who always worried about their personal space.”

“I have a fairly large apartment. It's not like we will be one on top of another.” She looked skeptical but didn’t say anything. He leaned forward and took her lips again with his own. She giggled when he lost his balance and ended up falling down on the bed, taking her with him. She was sitting at a weird angle and he was lying exposed on the bed, the sheet underneath him. He couldn’t help but laugh too. She moved so she wasn’t sitting so oddly, lying next to him and looking down at him, her arms crossed over his chest.

“This has been good,” she said. “I don’t know if it will always be this easy, but I’m really happy right now.” He smiled and ran a hand through her hair, pushing a lock behind her ear before trailing his fingers across her neck.

“Good. I’m happy too.”

~*~

  
Derek’s article had made Ivy introspective. It's hard to think of how to deal with an article listing all the mistakes a person you care about made in the last decade. A part of her had admired his bravery for admitting it and allowing one of the most public ways of people knowing about it to be the medium. The only way it could have been more public was if he had gone on a national talk show.

Thankfully, weeks afterwards the interest had died down to simply those who were in the business of Broadway and those who were enthusiasts who cared to know past the main cast. However, she was still a bit introspective. She wasn’t sure if it was just seeing Derek doing his mea culpa, or if was the reality of her pending motherhood that made her so still.

Boston of course had been _her_ rock bottom. The pills, the above and beyond Diva like behavior, the infidelity to avenge infidelity, the cutting words to people she called her friends. The backstabbing of a woman who didn’t deserve what she got. It had not been Ivy’s proudest few months.  She was however proud of the progress she had made over the last year in repairing all that.

She wasn’t sure what it was about this show that had made her that way. There really was no one to blame for it. She had made those decisions, though she regretted it now. Sure, others had influenced it. Derek had his part in influencing her feelings on Karen. He probably thought that by showing them their competition they’d work harder. He’d be right, but he hadn’t understood the other consequences, but that was on her.

She had made improvements. Started connecting with her old friends, regained some sense of humbleness in the rehearsal room. Apologized to Karen, though the two of them went up and down on whether that was an improvement or not. She supposed the Karen situation was one of the big bullet points on why she and Derek hadn’t worked before. And an issue she would have to deal with going forward. She was going to have to accept Karen’s place in Derek’s life.  She couldn’t choose his friends for him, and beyond that it was likely they would have to work together at some point in the future.

Her life, since she had made the changes, was improving. She regained her role as Marilyn, regained her friendships, managed to get along with her mother. She and Karen had actually managed almost a full night being civil to one another. She and Derek had managed a friendship.

A part of her wondered if maybe they needed that. A break in the intensity of their difficult romance to see if they actually did get along outside their passion for theater and each other. Having really great sex was a great thing, but it also helped to like the person when the sweat cooled. And she found that behind the sarcastic brooding genius was a guy she really did like. She liked talking to him about work. Giving each other advice, trusting each other’s opinions. She had been so amazed when she saw Derek actually taking her advice at Ronnie’s concert.

Maybe that had been another problem with their relationship. When they first got together, she had idolized him a bit. It hadn’t been long before the pedestal broke, but even then she had just gone along with a lot of things. Not that she blamed Derek, again those were her choices. But it was one sided. When they weren’t involved, things started to even out. They ended up on the same level.

She thought about those few weeks they were together after her birthday. They had been comfortable. They had been enjoying their separate places of work, had been enjoying each other and having a great time together. It had worked, until they once again came across the fact that they didn’t talk to each other enough. She didn’t know how serious he was, and he didn’t know she still had serious doubts. She still believed she was right to break things off, but in hindsight, she wondered if maybe they had talked things through and stopped involving other people in their relationship they could have worked things out then, instead of waiting so long.

Sam had given her good advice. He usually did. He had been the one who pushed her to tell Derek. She almost didn’t. There had been a selfish part of her that wanted him to find out on his own. She had considered getting herself out of the situation, but that lasted for only a few days. Surprisingly she liked the idea of being a mom, despite the bad timing. And there was a part of her that had liked the idea that Derek was the father even if she wasn’t sure she wanted him to be more than just a title holder.

But Sam had been right, he had a right to know, a right to make the decision to be involved on his own. She hadn’t expected things to lead to where they were. She hadn’t expected him to tell her he loved her, or to be relatively not upset about the fact that they were having a baby completely unplanned and equally bad timing in his life.

But they were trying, which she supposed, was the most anyone could ask of them.

She was getting sick of her own head though, always second guessing things. Wondering if he had said he loved her because he knew he couldn’t have Karen and was lonely. If he thought being with her was a good publicity stunt. That one was a wild thought, as she really didn’t think he was the type to do that. For one, he wasn’t that strong of an actor. He might be a good bluff, but he couldn’t put himself too far from reality. Another, she wasn’t that strong of an image improver. She was his ex-leading lady. Who he had slept with during call-backs. Who was part of the scandalous love triangle of _Bombshell_. It was really just a reminder of what had gone on. But in her more insecure moments, she wondered.

She knew she loved him. She had for a while, and while she wasn’t always happy with the fact, she had never quite let go. Even when they had just been friends and she had been so certain that Karen Cartwright was his leading lady on stage in and in life, she still loved him. Still cared what happened to him. Even when she was angry and disappointed in him, a part of her had wanted to comfort him as his career went into shambles.

She wanted this to work. She wasn’t sure her heart could take another beating like it did last year. She wanted to have a mix of the camaraderie they had those months when she was working on _Liaisons_ and they would meet for coffee, but she also wanted what she was enjoying now, watching him sleep early in the morning. The sun was just peering through the curtains that led to his balcony.

He never was a big sleeper. More often than not she’d awaken in the middle of the night and find him working on a project or reading research to figure out some angle he was missing. At first it had bothered her, had made her wonder if he was just waiting for her to leave, not wanting to spend time with her outside of sex. But as time wore on and she got to know him better, she knew it wasn’t that. He was a workaholic with insomnia problems. After a while it seemed like being around her helped, as if her presence relaxed him enough to sleep till a normal hour, though he often didn’t go to bed till after she was already asleep.

She imagined he probably got more sleep the last two weeks then he had the previous six months. Not necessarily good sleep, as evidenced by the overfilled recycling bin. She ran her hand lightly through his hair, a small smile on her face. She rarely got the opportunity to watch him sleep, but she had worn him out the night before, continuing their reunion.

She would have to get up soon. Eileen had given everyone a day off bar the short cast meeting slash celebration, but now it was back to business and they had a brunch meeting scheduled for the cast and crew to go over reviews of their performances with additional practice and practice some new angles designed for the numbers that needed work.  It was also a good time to let them know that adjustments to the choreography were going to be needed. Yesterday’s meeting had been mostly gathering to be happy about winning.  Not all the Tony commentaries had been posted yet, but now they would have long enough for Tom and the production team to make notes for the cast.  And of course whether or not the show would continue on much longer.

Tom had done a spectacular job with directing, but a part of her wondered what Derek would have done. Just a curious side thought that she didn’t delve into too much. She didn’t like to compare her best friend with her boyfriend, especially considering their already antagonistic reaction.

Now that Tom knew, and most of the inner cycle knew, she debated about telling the rest.  It was already speculation in the papers about her being pregnant; they were just waiting for confirmation. The public seemed divided between her being pregnant and her being on drugs again. 

Plus, she’d have to get her understudy ready to take on the lead, because after a few more months, it would be hard to hide Baby Lynn-Wills in those costumes. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do during that time. Probably talk to her agent about doing some TV spots or something short till she was back in running order again and the baby was old enough for her to return to the stage.

She shifted so she was lying on her back, looking at the ceiling. She took deep breaths, trying to will the panic away. Her life was going to change so drastically in the next couple of months and it was just hitting her all of a sudden.  She wasn’t sure why it had taken to this minute to do so, but she felt her chest tighten as the reality started to sink in completely.

Her job would change. Her priorities would have to change. A little person would need her in ways she wasn’t sure she was prepared for. Probably in ways she didn’t even know to be prepared for.

Derek must have sensed her tenseness as he shifted; using the arm that still lay across her waist to pull her closer. “What’s wrong,” He asked when she didn’t curl up into him like she was prone to do.

She wasn’t sure what to say. How do you explain that you were having a panic attack over something that wouldn’t happen for another 7 or so months? That a tiny baby had you gasping for breath at the realization? He seemed to figure out something, because he was suddenly alert and moving her so that he was hugging her, rubbing her back soothingly.

“Just breathe it’s okay.” She hoped he was right. Hoped she could handle this responsibility. Hoped that she could handle it better than her mother could. What if her daughter hates her?

“She won’t hate you.” She must have been saying her thoughts out loud as he answered her, remarkably confident in what he was saying. “She’ll love you. You’ll be an excellent mother.”

“How do you know? Look at all the crappy choices I’ve made in the last two years alone.”

“I know because you are a good person, and you have good friends, and this child is going to be well loved, even if her mother is going a little batty at the moment.” He kissed her forehead. “And you have plenty of time to figure everything out. It’s not like the baby is coming tomorrow, is it?”

“No, but so much is going to change.”

“Are you rethinking...”  Her eyes widened as she got the implication.

“NO!” She assured him. “No, that decision was made. I’m not rethinking it. I’m just trying to deal with the reality that everything is going to change. And not just in 7 months when this baby is born, but before that. My career. My life. I’ve got a higher responsibility and I’m not sure I have it in me yet to handle that.”

“You’ll handle it, you’ve handled worse. You are a Tony-award winning actress, with a hit musical. Your career will be fine with you taking a few months or a year to do what you need to do. And it’s not like you can’t continue working in other ways. You have options.”

Her breathing was coming in normally now, the panic subsiding under the comfort of Derek’s hands still rubbing her back and his words, sounding so confident and sure.

“I already love the baby, is that weird? I’m so afraid of being a mother, but I can already picture our little girl. She looks a good deal like you, but she has my smile.” His movements slowed, and he pulled her in for a tighter hug. “I don’t know why I feel like it's a girl either. It might be a boy.  There is no way to tell for another month or so”

“It could be, although that might ruin the Conroy Matriarchy.” She laughed, and he smiled, glad to see her mood improving. “I half expect that Leigh is expecting a granddaughter.”

“What do you want?” She asked quietly. “I never asked you that.”

“Honestly, it won’t matter to me, not really.” He shifted so he could hold his head up, looking down at her, playing with her hair as she laid back on the bed. “I never thought of being a parent, so there aren’t many images in my head to overcome.”

“I never asked you if you wanted kids.” He shrugged.  The subject had never been brought up between them.  She knew he found it awkward to deal his co-workers children, but she had never outright asked him if he wanted any of his own.  Not that his desire to have or not have children really effected the fact that she was pregnant.

“I suppose, many years ago which I was much younger I figured that they’d happen eventually, but no real thought went into it. This is probably good, as none of my marriages lasted very long and I’m glad I only have to share alimony payments and not custody.”

“You’ll have to tell me about them sometime.”

“My ex-wives?”

She nodded. “Should be interesting to know about the women who got Derek Wills to want to get married.”

“Do you want to?” She blinked, surprised at the question. She had only been teasing.

“Get married?”

“Yeah.”

“Now?” He raised an eyebrow. “Not particularly. Do you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then why bring that up?”

“You brought it up.”

“I brought up your ex-wives, which come to think about it you did. I mentioned nothing about us married.”

“Ever?”

“Derek, we haven’t been able to keep it together longer than six months. I think we should try outlasting that before we even think about making formal documents about our commitment to one another.” Would she like to get married one day? Sure. But she knew that the moment they were ready for that was a way off. Besides, she wasn’t sure Derek really wanted to get married a third time. Or if she wanted to be a third wife. Hell, she wasn’t sure she wanted to live with him yet, let alone anything more serious.

“Right now, all I need to know is that you love me, and that I love you. And in a few months we will love this child we are going to have. Anything else we can decide on later. “

Derek didn’t look too happy with the way the conversation was going, but didn’t say anything in response. Instead he changed the subject. “Do you have to work today?”

“Yes. We have a brunch meeting for the cast and crew to go over _Tony_ reviews, and Director notes, and then a refresher rehearsal for anything we want to alter. Then the show tonight.”

“Have they decided how long they are keeping the show open?”

“It’s been getting a lot more buzz, and ticket sales are going up so who knows. I think Eileen was hoping for just until the Tonys, but with our wins, she might hold out for a while. I guess I need to inform the rest of the crew about the baby, as I won’t be able to play Marilyn for much longer.

“It definitely would make for an interesting Marilyn.”

“Can you imagine the Public Relations number?” She asked, sharing his amusement now that she had calmed down. “Or the JFK scene.”

“One of my favorites,” he said with a leering grin.

“I bet it is.”

“I don’t remember that being part of the direction when _I_ was directing.”

“It wasn’t even in the stage directions when _Tom_ was directing. We had a custom malfunction in dress, and just went with it.”

“Makes a point.”

“Sam didn’t think I should do it.”

“I think Sam was respectfully wrong in this case. It fits the scene.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek and Tom, Derek and Karen, and Ivy is thrown for a bit of a loop.

“Derek.” He looked up, not at all surprised to see Tom glaring down at him. He was surprised it had taken him a whole week to confront him.

“Tom,” he replied in kind. “Care to sit, or does standing help your glower?”

“What are you doing?”

“At the moment? Trying to write up a script and drink coffee.” Derek was well aware of what Tom was asking. He just didn’t feel like making it easy for him.

“With Ivy,” He clarified with a roll of his eyes.

“Are you asking my intentions, Tom?” Derek put down his paper on the table.

“Do I need to?” Derek paused for a moment, debating on whether it was worth it to raise to the bait. But this was one of his girlfriend's closest friends, so he should probably attempt to stay civil. And they had remarkably been more civil towards each other in the last couple of months.  And there was probably still a sliver of loyalty to the man who at one point had been his best friend.  “My intentions, Tom, are to love her, and do my best by her and our child.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?  Love her?”

“Yes.”

“No, Tom.  I’ve been lying for the last couple of days to get one up on you.”  He rolled his eyes.  Tom just lifted his eyebrows and sat down across from him. 

“You broke her heart before, Derek, and I was barely in time to pick up the pieces.”

“Speaking of which,” Derek said, his tone getting more pointed.  “Why didn’t you tell us the truth of about Ivy in Boston?” It had been bothering him for days that he hadn’t known anything about what had happened in Boston.  He had bought the lie that she had simply caught the flu or had bad food poisoning. But now knowing the truth, it filled him with anger.  At himself for not figuring it out and at Tom for not telling him.

“It was none of your business.  You lost that when you went off with Rebecca.”

“You knew there wasn’t anything with Rebecca.”

“Are you going to go back on your statement a few weeks ago about sleeping with her.”

“No, I did sleep with her, but there was nothing on either of our parts other than just sex.  You knew that.”

“And Ivy wasn’t.” Tom’s tone was in disbelief, as if Derek could never tell the difference.

“No, actually.”  It was the first time he had actually admitted that, even to himself.  The last few weeks had been full of realizations.  “Ivy is never plain anything.”  Tom stared at him for a moment, and something in Derek’s expression must have satisfied him.

“You better do right by her this time,” Tom threatened as he stood up.  “Don’t make me have to pick up the pieces again.”  He sighed.  “And on a happier note, congratulations.”

“Thank you.”  There was still anger there.  Tom had sidestepped his question, but Derek knew the answer.  Tom and Sam hadn’t trusted anyone with the truth.  Julia might have known, but he figured she didn’t.  Not if Ivy had asked them not to.

“Tom is a good name,” Tom threw as a parting shot.

“I’m not naming my child after you, Tom.”

~*~

Karen wasn’t surprised by Derek’s announcement. The sentiment anyway. She had known for a while that Derek’s feelings for Ivy went deeper then he realized. Nor was she surprised that Ivy had managed to accomplish what she could not in making Derek get out of bed and greet the outside world. She had been slightly surprised however that he decided to announce to the world that he loved Ivy when she was pretty sure he hadn’t done it in private.

Ever since their attempt at hooking up, things had been different between Derek and her. It was like things had finally settled now that they had crossed off the what-if. They were clearly only friends now, and it was a weight lifted off them. Mostly because neither one of them was as confused as before. Well, she wasn’t. Derek was still slightly emotionally stunted, so she was sure he was still confused.

That night she had fully intended on sleeping with Derek. She wanted to, she was attracted to him, and with Jimmy seemingly out of her life she could give in. She hadn’t always felt this way about Derek. When they first met she found his interest in her a little unnerving, but as they got to know each other she started to return the interest. It just had never been strong enough to act on.

And apparently, it still wasn’t. They had made out on the couch; it had been slightly awkward as they both adjusted to reaching out for what was there and not what they really wanted. While they had both clearly enjoyed it, about the point where he was trying to work her shirt off and his was already on the coffee table they had met each other’s eyes and it was there for them both to see. Ghosts of other people they were emotionally connected to. And that had been it. They couldn’t go through with it. Not with her heart firmly attached to Jimmy, and his head muddled and confused about Ivy.

She could have made him realize the truth, she supposed. He almost seemed to realize it himself, but it apparently took him months and the threat of maybe loosing Ivy for good, both as a potential significant other as well as a friend for him to get it through his thick skull that he was crazy about her.

On the other hand, Karen had been less certain about Ivy’s feelings for Derek. When everything had gone down in Boston, she had been sure that Ivy had fallen for Derek. It seemed so apparent, especially during their sing off. But she couldn’t understand how she could be so in love with Derek and then turn around and sleep with Dev. Of course, there had been other elements to that happening that she studiously ignored. However after her almost attempt at sex with Derek she understood a little more.

Still, there was no telling what Ivy’s feelings towards Derek were now, a year later. Especially since things blew up between them a few months ago. Ivy would never be her favorite person, but they had found equilibrium over the past year. Sure, the annoyance blew up once and awhile. Although to be fair, Ivy probably had a good reason to be upset with her that last time. She hadn’t meant to imply to Ana that Ivy had slept for her role, but Karen hadn’t completely ruled it out. Just because it was how it started, didn’t mean that ended up being all it was. And Karen had been in a bad mood, and Ivy had a tendency to get under her skin in a way others didn’t.  But she did regret her remarks later.

She and Derek had arranged to meet for lunch a few days after the Tonys. She figured that he would want to stay a few days with Ivy, reuniting or what not. She almost surprised when she arrived at the diner and found Derek already there, surrounded by paper.

“I didn’t expect you to be here this early,” she commented, taking note of the coffee stains on some of the papers. It looked like he had been there for a while.

“I decided to get some work done.”

“What are you working on,” she asked as she dropped her purse on the bench before sliding in opposite of him.

“ _My Fair Lady_.”

“Wasn’t that what you were working on when _Bombshell_ started?”

“Indeed,” he drawled. “I figured it was as good of a project as any to kick start my career again. Although I doubt I’ll be an easy sell.”  She had to smile at the paradoxical mix of self-reproach and arrogance in his tone

“Eileen has faith in you.”

“Not entirely, but she’s got enough to give me a chance others won’t.” Karen only felt slightly sorry for him. After all, she herself had been a victim and a benefactor of his casting whims. Ana had been truly screwed over, and while she had not given up their friendship, she was still not completely ready to forgive him entirely.

“So how did things with Ivy go”, she decided to ask instead of commenting on work. The resulting grin on his face that he tried to hide was uplifting. It was nice to see him somewhat happy again. She smiled in response.

“We are going to give things another go.”

“A _real_ try?”  She raised her eyebrows pointedly.  She knew from the past Derek went into things thinking it would all fall into place and then get upset when it didn’t.

“Yes, a real try.” He looked almost hurt at her accusation that he was only doing this on a whim. “Doesn’t anyone believe me when I say I’m committed to this?”

“Believe you, yes. But you have a track record, Derek, and lately you’ve managed to break Ivy’s heart a time or two, and screw up a few other relationships because you couldn’t see things clearly. I just want to make sure you are.” They paused for a second as the waitress came and took their order.

“I am.” He said after the woman had left, then looked away for a second before meeting her eyes again. “I have more than one reason to keep to it.”

“Oh?”

“Ivy’s pregnant.” She blinked. She had not expected that.  She had heard the rumors of course, but she had thought they were just made up stories. An actress couldn’t eat a good burger without someone claiming it was a baby bump.

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t exactly expected.”

“I can see that.” She didn’t even ask if it was his. She knew from Jessica and Bobby that Ivy hadn’t been seeing anyone else, although she had shown an interest in Simon Anders, the man playing JFK.  She hadn’t been sure why the two felt she was interested in Ivy’s love life, but they liked to share all.  Ivy probably got updates on hers.  She loved them both, but they were utter gossips. “Are you happy about that though? You never really seemed to like the idea of kids.”  For a moment Karen had the unflattering thought that maybe Ivy had done this on purpose, but then she felt ashamed of herself. Ivy didn’t deserve that.

“Never really considered it, honestly,” he stated, rearranging the papers so that they were out of the way. “I never understood the desire to have them, but I never really thought about it in either way for myself.”

“So no overwhelming desire to repopulate the earth, yet not finding the idea too undesirable as to scratch it off the maybe list?”

“Pretty much,” he sighed. “I’m still just kind of stunned about the whole situation. Ivy seemed calm about it, but she’s had a couple of weeks to take it in.”  She wondered at the fact that he used seemed, and at another offhand comment.

“She waited that long to tell you?”

“We weren’t exactly on the best of terms the last couple of weeks.” He didn’t go into further details. She had suspicions as to why, but she didn’t really want to think about it too much. After they received their food, he continued. “She was going to tell me that night Ana told me she wasn’t going to go through with the lawsuit. But then she overheard you two and decided it wasn’t the best idea.” She could tell something was bothering him about that. She waited a few moments to see if he would actually admit it but he said nothing more and as the silence continued, she realized he really wasn’t going to.

“Jimmy is in prison.” Well, that was a change in subject and even she was surprised to hear her say it out of the blue like that.

“What?” He looked at her, clearly surprised as well. “And you said nothing about that before now?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to be disturbed and I figured Jerry would let you know. Sam’s taken over for the last show.”

“Let’s just say Jerry would prefer if he never saw me again at this point. Not that I’m eager to be in his presence again either.” Eileen had always been his preferred Rand. “So no, nothing was said to me.” He rolled his eyes. “What did the idiot do?”

“He turned himself in for something he did years ago. He claims he wants to be a better man and this is somehow the first step to being that.”

“I can understand that desire.” She supposed he could. After all, he was handling his own redemption arc. “How long?”

“Six to eighteen months.”

“Well, that’s not too bad, considering. What _did_ he do?”

“He sold drugs. Someone almost died.” She really didn’t want to go into the details, although Jimmy’s face and voice as he told her the story kept coming to mind. “He says he wants to be the type of man that deserves me.”

“That’s quite a feat.” Derek teased, a smile gracing his face. She smiled back. Their friendship was easier now that they had thrown out the idea of them possibly getting together. She felt they were better off for it and perhaps a bit happier too.  They could keep each other from ruining their slightly unstable relationships with their respective partners, for one thing.

“I’m going to visit him tomorrow. See about getting him a good lawyer so we can get it closer to the minimum sentence.”

“Ivy’s father’s a lawyer.” Derek supplied. “Mainly contract law, but he might know someone.”

“And you think you can get Ivy to talk to him?”

“I’m sure she will.”

“I’m not so sure. She and I don’t exactly have the best of history, and if you tell her it’s for Jimmy she’ll know who asked.”

“She might surprise you.”

“You’re in love with her. You’re a little biased in that regard,” she joked, but hoped he was right. “Does she know you are having lunch with me?”

“She does. She’s having lunch with Terry Fall.” He shrugged. “Why shouldn’t she know?”

“I’m just asking because she already dumped you once because of me.”

“Apparently not because of you, but because of me.” They had gone out for drinks that night to celebrate Kyle and their track to Broadway and he had told her of the whole event. She had been surprised, but then perhaps Ivy had taken more of the brunt of Derek’s bad life choices then Karen herself had. After all, despite the ugly start, she had mostly benefited from Derek’s attention.

“Still, you wouldn’t have broken up if I hadn’t told her you had asked me out.”

“It was true.” He paused for a moment. “Though it pains me to say this, I think I needed her to leave me. I wasn’t there yet.”

“You think you are now?”

“I hope I am. I’m more willing to fight for it now.” Derek figured that might have been where he went wrong in the first place. What if he had fought for their relationship after Boston? If he hadn’t just let her slip out of his life like she didn’t matter outside the rehearsal space.

~*~

Ivy stared at the script Terry had left behind, wondering what to do. On one hand it was incredibly flattering that he wanted her to direct. It was an appealing idea. She had never tried directing before, but she had helped Derek enough to have a budding interest in it.

But was she really ready to be a director? And things with _Liaisons_ hadn’t worked out as well as one could have hoped (well, better than expected for sure). Could she handle being the director? Terry was going to produce, as he had done with _Liaisons_ , with the potential involvement of Eileen Rand.

She couldn’t imagine why Eileen would think she was ready for this. Or Why Eileen would want to produce with Terry after _Liaisons._

This did give her a project she could while she was pregnant though. To keep up the momentum as her mother put it. It wouldn’t require her to do any dancing. She supposed it was more mental than physical. Since it wasn’t a musical, there wasn’t much chorography needed, so it should be a relatively simple project.

She picked up the script and slipped it into her bag, deciding to talk to Derek about when she got home.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek and Ivy discuss Terry, Jimmy and James.

Living with Derek was still something she was adjusting to. They were pretty good at giving each other enough space that they weren’t falling over each other all the time. It was a big enough apartment, as he had said. Derek liked to work in the living room on his dining room table; she preferred working on the couch, or in their room.

Neither of them had touched the idea of turning one of the guest rooms into a nursery yet.  It had only been a week into their trail living together.

When she arrived home he was on the couch, his bare feet on the coffee table. He was twirling a pen in one hand as the other held the script for _My Fair Lady_.  He had been concentrating on making notes on that for the last week.  Eileen hadn’t said what her next project was, but Ivy hoped it was _My Fair Lady_ if only because she wasn’t sure what they could give Derek to concentrate on once that script was done being noted on.  There was only so much you could think about a script at this stage.  Derek was probably a day into going over his thoughts.

She walked over and gave him a kiss before tossing her bag on the chair and sitting on the couch beside him.

“Rough day?” He asked, sparing her a glance before returning to scribbling something on the pages in front of him. She smiled at the familiar action.  She knew others might find issue with him paying attention to his papers rather then looking at her, but she knew him.  And she knew very well there would be days it would be reversed with her half involved in a project while listening to him.

“No, not really.” It wasn’t a lie. The morning sickness was quieting down, as was the weird hormonal charges that had people wondering if she had relapsed on her drug issue. She hated that rumor, especially as depending on what thread they had heard she was either a perpetual prescription junkie or on something illegal. The reasons why ranged too.  She shook the thoughts away and thought back to the day at hand.

 They had rehearsed the modified dance moves they would do for the remaining month or so before she would be too far along to be able to perform most of the moves and started Jessica on some of the scenes she needed to improve on before Ivy left. She was already causing a problem with the costuming department as they struggled to hide her now visible baby bump. She rubbed her stomach at the thought. She felt like she could feel a little fluttering now and again, but she couldn’t tell if it was really the baby or just some weird thing her body was doing. Pregnancy, as she had found out, was a weird experience.  It seemed like the bump had just appeared overnight and she didn’t understand half of what was going on.  Sam kept sending her links to parenting guide sites but she hadn’t had time or inclination to read them. 

She couldn’t wait till she could feel the baby and know it was the baby. At the last appointment the Doctor said it would be in the next few weeks. It was something she looked forward to.  She had another appointment around that time for an ultrasound and finding out the baby’s gender.

“Munchkin moving around yet?”  Munchkin was the nickname she had started to use to refer to the baby, not wanting to refer to it as, well, an it.  Derek apparently had picked up the habit.

“I think so. I feel the fluttering, but it’s not that strong.”

“Well the doctor did say it might take a little longer since this is your first pregnancy.”  She had filled him in during one of their discussions the last week or so about how her first appointment had gone.  She wasn’t sure if she was going to have him with her for her next one, and he hadn’t expressed any particular interest either.

“I know, but I really want to feel it.”

“Me, too.” He smiled up at her, and she felt relieved and then felt bad.  Derek had never expressed not wanting this kid, or that he wasn’t looking forward to meeting him or her.  But sometimes she let the insecurities play around. “How was your lunch with Falls?”  She raised an eyebrow at the change of subject but continued with it.

“He wanted to talk to me about a new project.”  She reached over to the chair and pulled her bag off and towards her.  She pulled out the script, handing it to Derek.

“He’s trying another musical?”

“No, he’s decided to try a play. He wants me to direct him in it.” He put down the script and looked at her.

“I didn’t know you were interested in directing.” His tone had surprise and interest in it.  She had expected a little resistance to the idea, as she had never really done any sort of directing.

“I was curious about it. I’m not sure if it is a full out interest though. But I’m considering it.”

“I think you’d do great.” She was surprised by the seriousness of that statement.

“Really?” His opinion meant a lot to her. Despite all the private heartache they had pushed on one another, she had always admired him professionally.

“Of course. I told you that you had a singular talent. And we all know you managed to get Terrance Fall to improve on _Liaisons_ , much more than the director you did have. You should try it.” He smiled and handed back the script.

“Maybe. I need to read the script first. He told me not to rush as he’s still in contract for a few episodes of a TV show that he has to do before he’s free to start producing this one.”

“He’s producing too?”

“Well, he’s investing in it. I think he’s convinced Eileen to work as a producer.”

“That should be interesting. I don’t think Eileen usually does more than one project at a time.”  He didn’t say out loud that her new show might be competing with his for Eileen’s next project.  She really hoped they wouldn’t be in direct competition again. 

“I don’t think this one is going to be nearly as big as a musical like _My Fair Lady_. It’s a short play. Probably something that will have a short run. I don’t think she’s signed off on it yet. He’s hoping that if I sign off as a director it will appeal to her more.”

“It might. She knows you and your work. And we know she likes taking risks.”

“She doesn’t know me as a director. Hell, I don’t know me as a director.”

“You’ll never know till you try. And clearly he has faith in you.  As do I.”

“Thanks, Derek.”  She appreciated his support, but knew it was still a hard sell.  She had no real directing experience, and talking Terrance Fall through Liaisons didn’t really count in any meaningful way.  But maybe she could try, with Terry and Derek’s support and Eileen behind her if she so chooses.

“How goes Eliza?” she asked, changing the subject to his own project.

“Surprisingly quickly,” He responded with a sigh, running a hand through his hair.  “I knew I had a lot of it done already, but I’m surprised at how little I want to change.”

“Did you doubt your own ideas?”

“It’s been two years.  Things can change.  I want it to be a fresh take.”

“Maybe you are focusing on it too hard.” She took the script off his lap and tossed it onto the coffee table.  “Think about something else for a while.  Maybe that will lessen up whatever blocks you are having.

He gave her a grin and a raised eyebrow.  “And just what did you have in mind?”  She laughed shaking her head, but she didn’t argue with him either.

* * *

 

Later when the two took a break from their work to have dinner, Derek brought up the Jimmy issue.  Despite his confidence before Karen, he wasn’t sure how Ivy would take it.  He loved her, but she had a rage streak when it came to Karen.  The two had found even ground, and Ivy had even had a conversation with Karen when she called the other night and he was in the shower.  But there was something about Karen that made Ivy get her back up.

“Do you remember Jimmy Collins?”

“Of course I remember.”  She rubbed her hand over her face.  “He never really allowed me to aplogise for what I said about Kyle.”

“Jimmy has a hard time accepting anything from anyone, be it apology or help.”  Derek had his own issues with Jimmy, and he supposed Jimmy was to him as Karen was to Ivy.  On paper they should get along, had a lot in common, but they drove each other up the wall.  “Well, he recently tried to turn his life around and it meant going to jail.”

“Jail?”  Ivy looked up concerned.  “What did he do?”  She remembered the rumors that had floated around at the Bombshell opening party.  Drugs, violence.  The stories abounded.

“Apparently years back he was dealing and a girl who bought off of him almost died.  It freaked him out, and he ran.  He decided to turn himself in.  He’s looking at several years in jail.” He sighed before landing the blow.  “I told Karen I’d ask if your Dad knows someone who can represent him.”

“Sure, I can ask,” Ivy stated. “I’m surprised Karen knew Dad was a lawyer.”

“I may have brought it up.”

“Oh,” she stated, giving him a look.  “So, basically you are asking for Karen.”

“Well, I would say its more me asking on behalf of Karen for Jimmy.  Jimmy ultimately is the one this will help.”

“Well, I’ll ask him.  Dad wanted to have lunch this weekend when he is town.  He should know anyone.  And I’ll have to know more.”

“I don’t know more then that.  Karen would know.”  He could tell talking about his friendship with Karen was still an issue between them.  Ivy was stiff in her barstool at the kitchen counter and stabbing her food with a force higher than necessary.  “Ivy.”

She looked up at him, and he wasn’t surprised to see that she looked hurt.  He wished he could explain himself in way that showed he wasn’t still into Karen. “It’s for Jimmy, honest. Karen and I are just friends.”

“I know. It’s just…”  she sighed and put her fork down.  “I’m sorry.  I know that Karen is just a friend, and that friends do this for each other.  But there is a part of me that still is waiting for the shoe to drop and find out you left me for her again, or that I’m your consolation prize.”

“You are no one’s consolation prize.”  He meant that, though he knew it would take time and not words for him to prove it.  One element of having a week-long bender is a lot of time to think over what was wrong.

* * *

 

“A criminal lawyer?”  James Lynn looked at his daughter in concern.  Was her boyfriend up to no good.  As far as he had heard Wills was a womanizer, not a criminal.  Not deserving of his daughter, but not in need of a good criminal lawyer.

“A friend of mine has been in trouble in the past,” Ivy stated, and James noted that she seemed a little edgy about the word friend. “He had a lot happen to him in the past year, and has decided to make his life right.  And it included turning himself in for selling drugs to a woman several years ago.  She’s not dead, and he hasn’t been caught with any drugs on him.  Just his confession to the crime.  I was wondering if there was any lawyers you knew who could represent him.”

“Your boyfriend’s a drug dealer?”

“WHAT?”  Ivy looked at him in shock.  “Where the hell did you get that from?”

“You said your friend, and it just sounded like a roundabout way of it being your boyfriend without admitting it was your boyfriend. Damn it, Ivy.  Your taste in men is apparently getting worse as you get older.”  He was surprised when Ivy’s surprise turned to a simmering anger, one he saw on his own face once or twice.  Ivy had always been her mother’s daughter, but her temper came from him.

“First of all, my taste in men is just fine.  Second, Derek has nothing to do with this other then being another friend of the man I am talking about.  Jimmy is a friend of mine, and his girlfriend asked if I knew anyone since you work as a lawyer and must know other lawyers.”  She shook her head.  “I know you aren’t happy about my choice to give Derek another chance, but I love him, and he is the father of my child.  Please try to remember that.”

James blinked.  He had to admit that he was surprised at her defense.  She had never been one to shy away from arguing back about her boyfriends, but usually it was just angry words and tears.  This time she was full of anger, but her words were simply clipped.  There were no outbursts, just a calm statement that she wanted to be respected.

He hated the thought of it, but it was possible his daughter really did love this Wills idiot.  The man would never deserve her, but his daughter had made her decision.

“Then tell me about this Jimmy and I’ll see what I can do.”

 

* * *

 

Jimmy had found out early on that real prisons were not quite like the ones on TV.  He wore an orange jumpsuit with a number on it, shared a cell with a man named George who was in there for drug procession as well.  Although George was a bit more the hardened Drug dealer one always thought of when they thought drug dealer.  And Jimmy wasn’t too sure George wasn’t still dealing.

Still, the scheduled meal times, and the time alone didn’t bother him.  He was allowed to have a notebook, as long as the guards could regularly see what he was writing down, and the pen had to stay in room.  He had to hold it up to the guard anytime he was let out. 

He wrote all kinds of things.  Letters to Karen, whom Crystal the daytime guard of the activities room agreed to send.  Lyrics to songs, music to go along with them.  It was lonely, but he was doing fine.  Especially with the goal in mind of being someone worthy of Karen.

Someone worthy of Kyle.

He wrote to Kyle too.  Saying he was sorry.  Wishing that Kyle was there to say these things to.  The overwhelming guilt that Kyle had been out because of him that night.  That if he hadn’t blown Kyle off, he might not be dead.  Instead he could have been with Tom or bunking with Karen and Ana after a night binging some Netflix show. For a kid with such an optimistic view on life he sure liked his dirty crime shows.

So, sure, he was here to do penance.  To Kyle, To Karen, to that girl he could have killed that night.  He wanted to be a better person.  Sure, his inspiration was Kyle and Karen, but they had just shown him how far he had fallen.  They showed him he could climb back up.  So, he was.

He was in the middle of writing a letter to Karen when Crystal the guard came up to him.

“Collins, you have a visitor.”

When she said there was a visitor, he expected Karen or Ana.  Maybe the Bishops.  Instead when he was brought into the visitation room he found himself across a table from a man in a suit, looking through a bunch of papers.  When the lawyer looked up, Jimmy had a weird feeling he had seen those eyes before.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Collins.  My name is James Lynn and I’m going to be your lawyer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what is James Lynn up to? We will find out soon.


	9. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a wench is thrown into everything, Derek and Ivy loose something while gaining reassurance and no one is at all sure how to deal with anything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter deals with Missing Twin Syndrome, which is a type of miscarriage. I'm in no way a medical expert or someone who has a personal history, so some facts may have been lost in transition. I wanted to put a warning here for those who might wish to skip this chapter due to what it contains and to apologise for any factual errors that might occur during the situation.
> 
> Again this is unbeta'd

She was with Tom when it happened. It was an early rehearsal, putting Jessica through the whole show for the first time with the expectation she’d be taking over soon. It had felt like a relief to have the secret out for the last couple weeks, to see everyone happy for her, instead of giving her worried looks and thinking she had turned back to drugs to keep her going.

The rehearsal had just finished and she and Tom were reviewing what they thought at the director’s stand in front of the theater when she started to feel cramps in her stomach. At first, she wasn’t concerned, as she had been told that light cramps might happen due to the body stretching. When they continued, and even Tom started to notice that she was in pain, the worry started to seep in. 

So, they went to the emergency room. The waiting didn’t help matters. All she could think about was what if something was going wrong with the baby. She was only 12 weeks, and they said that the first 15 weeks were when most miscarriages happened. Despite fearing the prospect of being a mother, she couldn’t imagine losing her child already.

“Everything will be fine, Ivy.”  Tom was being amazing, staying by her side, calling Derek, and otherwise trying to keep her calm.  “They are letting you wait, so it can’t be that bad.  If something was wrong they’d rush you in there.

“You don’t know that.” Tom took her hand and squeezed it between his own.

“Take a deep breath. I’m pretty sure panic is not going to help anything. Maybe it’s just from your muscles adjusting.”  He had no idea what he was talking about, but that sounded reasonable, didn’t it.

“It seems a little strong for that.” He had nothing to say to that. “I don’t want to...”

“You aren’t. Don’t even think that way.”

“But what if I do?”

“Then I’ll be here for you, as will Julia and the rest of them. You’ll get through this. But I don’t think you’ll need to, it will be fine.”

They called her up and put her in an exam room, and told her the doctor would be with her shortly, but the nurse would take some information down and do some preliminary checks. She recited her information for the registration person, and tried to sit calmly while the nurse took her temperature and hooked her up to the heart rate monitor.

“You said you were pregnant?” The nurse said, noting something down on her tablet.

“Am pregnant, yes.” Ivy was not about to use past tense if she could help it. “About 12 weeks.”

“Have you any other symptoms. Spotting, pain in other parts of your body?” She put down her tablet to do press on various spots of her abdomen.

“There’s been a little spotting, yes, but I was told that was probably normal.”

“Some women do continue to have light spotting during their pregnancies, but it could be a symptom of something else.” The nurse smiled reassuringly at her and Tom. “Would Dad like a seat?”

“Oh, I’m not the father,” Tom said, eyes wide, “But yeah, sure.” The nurse pulled over a folding chair from the nurse’s station for him to sit next to the bed. She then picked up her tablet, noted a few things down and asked about Ivy’s medications before leaving the curtained area.

“We should try Derek again,” Ivy said. In her panic over the cramps she hadn’t thought to call Derek, but Tom had.  He had called but got voice mail. So far Derek hadn’t returned the call. She felt a sudden need to have him there, to hold her hand. As much as she loved Tom, she needed Derek.

“I’ll go out to the waiting room and call, if you are alright being by yourself?” She nodded, grateful he was there.

“I’ll be fine for a little while, I think.” He nodded, pulling out his phone as he swished his way through the curtain.

She regretted letting him go for a few moments, the loneliness of the room not helping her worry. She could hear the beeping of machines and the movement of people as they cared for other patients, but it seemed oddly quiet and stark where she was.

 

* * *

 

“What do you need, Tom?” Derek asked, annoyed at the interruption. He had been meeting with his agent for the first time in about a month and the two of them seemingly were just about to come to a compromise to keep her working for him. She wasn’t happy with his behavior of late, and seemed less forgiving then his girlfriend about it. Tom rarely called, but he had felt fine ignoring the first one.  However, a second call was unusual.

“It’s Ivy.” Suddenly the annoyance drained right out of him. He could tell something was wrong from the sound of Tom’s voice. While they would probably never regain the friendship of their past, he still knew Tom well enough to expect certain qualities when they talked to one another. Worry was not one of them. And they did have one major thing in common. They both loved Ivy Lynn.

“What’s wrong?”

“She started cramping at the rehearsal. We have her at the ER, but she wanted you here.”

“How is she?” It didn’t sound good. It took him a second to understand what the cramping could signify, and he turned away from the table where his agent still sat, looking quite annoyed with for answering his phone. She would have to deal.

“Overall, I would say fine, but she is worried.” Tom sighed. “She needs you.” Derek knew it probably irritated Tom to say that, so he probably meant it.

“I’ll be right there. What hospital?” Tom told him, and the two said goodbye and Derek turned to his agent. “I’m going to have to go.”

“We aren’t finished.” Jeanine looked annoyed, and he didn’t blame her, but for once there was something more important for him.

“My girlfriend was just taken to the ER. I would stay, but I think this is more important, wouldn’t you?” Her eyes narrowed at his tone but she nodded and let him go. He grabbed his jacket and rushed out of the room.

Ivy rarely needed him. It wasn’t something that bothered him too much, but it was rare enough that when she did need him it surprised him. It was usually the other way around. He’d find his way to her, needing her to remind him he wasn’t a monster, that there was one person who still cared about him. That loved him.

It seemed like the world wanted to keep him from getting to her the one time she needed the same. It was like the world had let out on the streets of Manhattan, blocking him from reaching her.

By the time he got to her, it had been half an hour and he rushed into the waiting room. He was about to ask the front desk where she was when Tom appeared from out of nowhere.

“She’s over here,” Tom said, leading him to a curtained off area along the one wall. He turned back the curtain to find her lying on the bed with a Doctor applying gel on her stomach. He walked around to the other side of the bed and took the hand she stretched out to him.

“What’s going on?”

“They are trying to find the baby’s heartbeat.” He had never quite heard her voice like that, as if she was starting to break inside. The whole time he had been rushing over, he had thought about her, hadn’t really thought about what this could mean beyond the fact that something was wrong.

He squeezed her hand, and leaned down to kiss the top of her head, hoping that they would be able to find it. He hadn’t realized how attached to the idea of being a father he had become. It hadn’t seemed real yet. But right now, with the potential that they had lost their child, it seemed very real indeed. He could tell there were already tears in Ivy’s eyes.

The technician, as apparently he wasn’t an actual doctor, continued to scan Ivy using the Doppler wand. The room was silent, and as it continued to be, with the only sound being slight static, the other three occupants started to fear the worst.

But then, just the tech himself was about to give up, the sound of a rapid heartbeat came through the air. Ivy laughed in relief, the tears falling from her eyes as she leaned into Derek who just seemed stunned. Tom himself turned to look away; closing his eyes with a quick thank you to the god he still wasn’t sure he believed in.

Derek was the first person to notice the tech wasn’t looking as happy as the rest of them. He had attached a monitor to the spot he had found the heartbeat, and was monitoring that, but was switching over to an ultrasound wand. Moving it around, he seemed to frown a little more.

Derek said nothing, not wanting to alarm Ivy. She was still leaning back against the pillow, her eyes closed as she continued to listen to the monitor beeping in reassuring tones that her child was still there.

“Hello, I’m Doctor Daniels,” an older man said as he entered the room. He gave them a reassuring smile before looking down at his chart. “It says here you’ve been experiencing mild to moderate cramping, along with spotting?” 

“Yes, it started about an hour ago. Tom helped me here.”

“Well, the tests so far seem to indicate that your baby is not in distress. I see it’s got a strong heartbeat, a little agitated, but that's probably because it’s sensing your own worry.” He smiled reassuringly. “Phillip is going to finish up the ultrasound and look for any abnormalities that might cause the cramping and spotting.”

“Doctor,” the tech said, pointing to something on the screen. The two men conversed softly, their volume and the words used making it rather difficult for Derek to decipher, and he could tell by the tightening of Ivy’s grip on his hand that she didn’t understand it, or at least wasn’t being put at ease by what was being said.

“Ivy, I write with that hand.” he murmured. She loosed her grip, murmuring a ‘sorry’ in response.

“Is there something wrong,” She asked louder, her voice wobbling a little.

“Yes and no.” The doctor said, with a sigh. “As I said earlier, your child appears to be developing well, and all signs point to being perfectly healthy.”

“But...”

“It appears that you were originally pregnant with twins.”

“Originally?”

“One miscarried.” Two words to change everything. “It looks like it happened earlier in the pregnancy, which is why you have been having periodic spotting. The cramping is the last stage of the miscarriage, trying to expel the last of the tissue that was not reabsorbed by you or your other child.”

Derek looked at Ivy to see her staring at the doctors, yet not. Almost as if she was in a daze. It was hard to believe that in the same five minutes they had been reassured that one child was healthy and doing well, only to find out there had been another - and it was gone.

“Was it...” Ivy paused, swallowing before continuing. “Was it something I did?”

“No, Ms. Lynn. It was most likely natural causes. There is an increased chance of miscarriage during multiples. Many women go through such a miscarriage with very little symptoms, some don’t even know it’s happened. There have been higher accounts of this kind of miscarriage due to earlier ultrasounds being able to detect the twin during the initial conformation of pregnancy”

Except they did know. And Derek knew he didn’t know how to deal with it. From the look on Ivy’s face, she certainly didn’t know how to deal with it.  He didn’t even look at Tom to see if he was handling it.

“It won’t affect your other child, in most cases women end up having perfectly normal and healthy pregnancies. However, I know this can be emotionally draining, so I would take it easy for a few days. We can suggest someone to talk to if you like, someone experienced with these types of situations.”

They were soon left by themselves to deal with the fallout of such an announcement. It seemed too easy to Derek. That the doctor had barely been there. Maybe they were wrong. But he knew deep down they weren’t doing this on a whim. He had seen the Tech’s face.

“I’ll go let Eileen know that Ivy’s out for the week. Don’t worry about a thing, Ivy,” Tom said, squeezing her ankle in support, although Derek could see he was having trouble with it as well when he finally made eye contact.  The two men nodded at each other, united in their support for the woman in the hospital bed.  Derek turned his attention back to Ivy as Tom left.

It was just hard to wrap his mind around. He had barely known he was going to be a father, now he learns that at least for a little while he was going to be the father of two. If the Doctor was right about when it happened, there was a good chance it happened before he even knew. Still, that mattered little.

He felt Ivy shake as she started to let herself cry, let herself grieve the child she didn’t even know she was going to have. He slipped into the bed beside her, wrapping his arms around her to hold her close. Ignored the desire in him to go get really drunk. It wouldn’t help anyone, even if it would buy him a few more hours of denial.

“Why is this hurting so much,” Ivy asked. “Ten minutes ago I only thought I was having one. I still am having one. She’s okay. Why does it hurt so much and I didn’t even know.”

“I don’t know. I just know that it does.” He wondered how much it would have hurt had they known if it already felt like a kick in the gut.  He didn’t contemplate that long, instead curling around Ivy on the bed and letting her release her confusion and grief.

 

* * *

 

“How is she?” Tom asked when he called later.  Ivy had been discharged and Derek had taken her home.  They hadn’t talked much, neither knowing what to say.  The doctor had done a few more tests to check on their remaining twin, and everything pointing to them being healthy and alright.  Which had been a relief in amidst the confusion of everything else.

“Sleeping at the moment. The doctor gave her something to take to ease the cramping and it made her drowsy so she’s been sleeping most of the evening. I don’t think she was up for anything else, to be honest.”

“I still can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I.” It had been hours, and it was still hard to wrap his mind around it. He was still wrapping his head around having any children. “I called Leigh.”

“Do you think Ivy is going to appreciate that?”  Tom’s voice was skeptical, but he could still hear the slight agreement in there.

“I think Ivy is going to need her mother,” Derek responded. “I don’t know how to help her through this. I was hoping maybe another mother would.  And my mother gets here tonight.  She could probably use a friend.”

“I’ll be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mama Wills arrival sounds rather sudden here, but more will be expanded in the next chapter.


End file.
